Perfect Pitch
by sleepy-emo
Summary: Scholarship student Max Tate is having trouble adjusting to life at Benjamin Britten Academy of Performing Arts. That may have something to do with the fact that everyone is fascinated with him because of the scholarship or it might have something to do with the fact that he's face to face with his ex again. Full summary inside.
1. The Soundtrack Starts, The Scene Begins

**Happy New Years guys! So this is what I spent all of my 2015 writing... I know right who dedicates a year of their life to Beyblade fanfiction? Apparently I do. This is what would have happened if I had been allowed to write it from the beginning: replacing spinning tops with musical theatre, Tyson would not be the main character because he's an annoying bastard and a totally cannon secret relationship would actually be a thing! Anyway I hope you enjoy this, I'll be highlighting the music I use in this so if you want to check any of it out I would totally say go for it because it's all brilliant and not super well known. Anyway enough from me, enjoy the story.**

* * *

Full Summary: _Scholarship student Max Tate is having trouble adjusting to life at Benjamin Britten Academy of Performing Arts. That may have something to do with the fact that everyone is fascinated with him because of the scholarship, or that he's not prepared in the slightest for the high standards of his teachers, or that his room-mate talks to his laptop (and it talks back!), or it might have something to do with the fact that he's face to face with his ex again. Let's not over think this and just go with the laptop thing..._

* * *

"Benjamin Britton Academy," the taxi driver said as he pulled up outside the huge building. "this is where you wanted, right kid?"

"Yeah thanks." I grinned leaning forward and wrapping my arms around the passenger side headrest. I turned to look up in awe and excitement at the massive front-face of my new school. I was so thrilled to be here: it was a brand new school for me and I couldn't wait to throw myself into a brand new challenge. My old school had just been one huge cock up after another and I was so glad it was all behind me now.

"That'll be thirty pounds kid." the taxi driver said breaking me out of my daydream.

"Sure thing." I chuckled shaking myself back to reality and pulled my wallet out of my back pocket. I handed him the notes my dad had given me specifically for the taxi fair. I thanked him and got out of the car. I grabbed my bags out of the boot and thanked him again. He gave me an encouraging nod and a thumbs up before driving away.

I turned to stare up at the huge building in front of me and grinned; I was finally here! Months and months of hard work had finally paid off and I had gotten in to Benjamin Britton Academy of Performing Arts; the number one performing arts school in pretty much the entire world. People come from all over the world to go here and only the absolute elite can get a place. The fees are astronomical and they give out one scholarship maybe every two years and this year I was lucky enough to get that scholarship.

It wasn't easy. I pretty much worked my butt off for a year and a half BEFORE the first audition and continued slogging at it until they finally gave me the scholarship. I've always been very determined and this was one thing I wasn't going to give up on even though my mother and stepfather had practically forced me to go to College when I finished High School. They wanted me to go to College, I wanted to audition for BBA so we compromised: I went to a University in London and only told them that I had auditioned for a place at BBA when I got the scholarship and dropped out of my other University.

So here I am: hauling two huge suitcases and two backpacks worth of my stuff around the halls of what is basically a castle on the coast of Swansea, Wales, about to start what I know will be the best year of my life. Just as soon as I managed to find my room…

* * *

This place is literally like a maze! Finally (after wondering around for forty-five minutes) I stopped and asked someone for directions. The guy who stopped to help me was a huge, thickset giant with a thick Russian accent and a face that looked like he'd been hit with a frying pan. He grumpily gave me directions before turning his attention back to his phone. I took the directions he gave me and eventually I found my room.

Unlike when I was in halls in London here I was going to have a roommate. I was okay with this if it wasn't for the fact that I had had absolutely no contact with the person I was about to spend the next year or so with – I didn't even know his name or whether he was in my year. Due to this fact I decided to knock on the door rather than use the key I'd been sent. After about half a minute the door opened and a short (incredibly short considering his presumed age) guy with huge glasses and a mop of shaggy brown hair appeared.

"Hi," I began beaming at him and extending my hand. "I'm…"

"Max Mizuhara." he chimed in, shaking it before I could finish introducing myself. I blinked at him in surprise.

"Um yeah." I replied, not really sure how else to respond to that.

"You also go by the surname 'Tate' since your parents divorced and your mother remarried." he continued still shaking my hand. "You were attending Goldsmiths University in London, doing a joint BA in English Language and Literature, before transferring here after receiving a scholarship. You turned twenty six months ago and you put mustard on pretty much everything you eat." I stared at him, dumbfounded, for a moment before I managed to find my voice again.

"How… do you know all of this?" I asked, not without a hint of fear in my voice. I was too stunned to even let go of his hand. He beamed and began to drag me into the room and over to his desk.

"I have a complete data base on every single student at this school, complete with medical records, dietary requirements and everything from what films they like to their sexual preferences." he told me letting go of my hand as he sat down and proceeded to pull up the file he had for me. I stared in amazement and mild terror; he really did have everything about me, ever a short paragraph about my last boyfriend, Brooklyn.

"Where did you get all of this?" I asked, confused and still decidedly freaked out.

"The school's firewalls aren't as secure as you might hope." he grinned.

"And you might want to privatise your Facebook page too." a female voice said from out of nowhere. I looked around the room, searching for the source of the voice until it spoke again. "Down here, Bright Eyes." I looked down, to where I thought the voice was coming from but all I saw was the computer.

"What?"

"Hi." the computer said brightly. I blanched – this was all starting to get a little bit too weird for me. I had half a mind to grab my bags, go find the accommodation office and ask for a new room.

"This is Dizzara," my roommate said. "my girlfriend." I stared at him, still incredibly confused, before my brain kicked into gear: he was talking to his girlfriend on Skype! That made so much more sense! I breathed a sigh of relief – I thought I was going crazy for a minute.

"I prefer Dizzi, thank you." she replied waspishly. Okay, I noted, don't get on wrong side of her.

"Sure thing." I replied feeling much more relieved now I knew that I was talking to an actual person. I glanced at the computer screen (just to see if I had somehow missed the WebCam icon) but I couldn't see anything. I couldn't even see the icon to say that he had Skype never mind that it was open.

"The school's internet isn't much to go by," he said suddenly. "but I can just about make it work."

"The Skype connection seemed pretty good." I observed. He chuckled and so did Dizzi.

"I don't use Skype." he stated. Say what? I'm not sure if he's implying what I think he's implying; that I'm talking to this guys computer, the computer is talking back and my brain can't process this right now.

"So you know all this stuff about me," I said changing the subject to something my brain could just about handle. "but I know nothing about you."

"Sorry, sorry," he said shaking his head as if he'd only just realised that we'd been talking for ten minutes and he hadn't even told me his name. "I'm Kenny; Kenny Saien, most people call me 'The Chief' though," he told me.

"Any particular reason why?" I asked.

"Because he's the best technician in the whole damn school." Dizzi stated and I could hear the pride in her voice. Kenny's cheeks reddened.

"Dizzi stop." he half whined in embarrassment.

"What?" she protested. "It's true and you know it." Kenny's blush deepened and he mumbled something to himself that I didn't quite catch but I think was something along the lines of 'not in front of Max'. I chose to gloss over this and save him before his head exploded.

"Well it sure is great to meet you both." I beamed.

"Likewise." Kenny smiled. "So when is your first class?" I looked at my watch.

"In about an hour." I told him. "I'm going to try and get as much of my stuff unpacked as possible before I go."

"Sounds sensible." he replied. "Do you know who any of your teachers are yet?"

"No clue." I said shrugging. "I don't really know anything about the other people in my classes either."

"They'll certainly be fascinated by you, Mr Scholarship Student." Dizzi teased loudly as I went to retrieve my suitcases from the hallway.

"Excuse me, did you say scholarship student?" a girl's voice asked. I looked up, standing in front of my suitcases were two girls – one had shoulder length ginger hair and large glasses and the other dressed entirely in pink with long pink hair tied back into a high ponytail (no prises for guessing her favourite colour).

"Um yeah…" I replied slowly. The pink one squealed excitedly.

"Oh wow! I can't believe it's actually you!" she exclaimed jumping on the spot delightedly. "Everyone's been talking about you and we actually get to meet you! What's your name? What year are you in? Where are you from?" She momentarily paused for breath and I took this as my cue to answer.

"Hi I'm Max; first year student, originally from America but lived in the UK for the past two years."

"Ah a fellow American!" the ginger girl exclaimed and, sure enough the accent was there. "Our population is increasing."

"Really?" I asked. "I wouldn't have thought there was that big an American population in Swansea."

"Oh don't be fooled," she chuckled waving me off. "we're all BBA students. I'm Emily by the way." She extended her hand and I shook it.

"Hi." I smiled before turning to the other girl.

"Mariah." she said also shaking my hand.

"Nice to meet you. So are you both first years?" I asked.

"Yeah," Emily replied. "we're roommates."

"You're rooming with 'The Chief' aren't you?" Mariah asked.

"Yeah." I replied. "Going to unpack as much of my stuff before class as I can and then head down."

"What class do you have first?" Emily asked. I pulled my timetable out of the back pocket of my shorts and unfolded it.

"Intro To Performance." I read the tiny print in the top left hand corner.

"Me too!" Mariah cried excitedly. "We can sit together!"

"Sure that would be great." I said. I still didn't really know anyone and having Mariah with me might deter people from singling me out as the scholarship student, plus both she and Emily seemed like a lot of fun.

"Awesome!" Mariah beamed. "Well we'll let you get on with your unpacking we just wanted to come and invite you and 'The Chief' to a party we're having on our floor tonight."

"It's a Fresher's Welcome Party." Emily stated.

"I thought Fresher's Week was last week?" I asked. I had missed out on the Fresher's Week here due to various reasons (both of my parents wanting to see me before I went to Wales being the main one).

"It was," Emily replied. "but there's always a party on the fifth floor after the first day of lessons. It's a tradition we intend to uphold."

"So will you come?" Mariah asked hopefully.

"I'll think about it." I replied. "I'll see if I get all my unpacking done and if I get any assignments and stuff."

"Oh come on, it's the first night of term!" Emily insisted.

"Yeah only a complete slave driver would give you an assignment on the first night!" Mariah agreed.

"I promise I'll think about it okay." I chuckled.

"Fine!" Emily relented. She turned to Mariah. "We should get going."

"Okay," she nodded. "I'll see you later Max and think about the party, yeah?"

"Sure thing." I grinned. They turned and continued off down the corridor. I looked at my watch; I had forty-five minutes to get as much of my stuff unpacked as possible. Better get started then…

* * *

The auditorium where my first class was held was huge! My guess is that they also use it for whole school assemblies and stuff. Our class covered only the first four rows with lots of gaps making it seem even larger. As we had been filing in I noticed someone (who I assumed was our teacher) sitting on the edge of the stage. He looked weirdly familiar, I thought, but I couldn't place where I might have met him before. It wasn't until he started to speak that I realised how I knew him.

"My name is Hiro Granger and I will be your Introduction To Performance teacher." he introduced himself. As soon as he had said it I recognised him immediately. When I was at Goldsmiths I only really made two friends: one was an American guy named Tyson and his British girlfriend, Hillary, and I recognised Hiro from one of Tyson's photographs. I remembered him telling me that the other guy in the photograph was his older brother and that he was a teacher at another University in the UK.

Damn it Tyson, why didn't you tell me he worked here!? I mean it's not as if he didn't have enough chances. I lost count of the amount of times I mentioned BBA and not once did he think to tell me that his older brother worked here. I know it's not that big of a deal but a heads up might have been nice!

I had zoned off into my own little world (mostly thinking about calling Tyson as soon as class was over to say something along the lines of 'dude what the fuck?') when the sound of my name caught my attention.

"Pardon?" I asked snapping back to reality. Hiro raised an eyebrow.

"I said I have two surnames down for you; is it Mizuhara or Tate?"

"It's Tate." I replied.

"Wonderful." Hiro replied flatly, as if he couldn't give a shit one way or the other, taking a pen out of his pocket, clicking it and crossing something out on the register he was holding. "Mr Tate you are a scholarship student so that makes you somewhat special as you managed to get into this school based on your talent and hard work alone."

"Thank you." I mumbled in embarrassment. I could practically feel every single pair of eyes in the class turning to stare at me and my face caught fire.

"However," Hiro continued. "that doesn't give you the luxury to not pay attention!" My face heated up even more.

"Sorry." I muttered. Beside me I could feel Mariah shaking with silent laughter. Hiro raised an eyebrow indifferently before turning his attention back to the rest of the class.

"Moving on…" he said and continued with his register. I let out the breath I had been holding thankful that the interrogation was over. Mariah nudged me gently in the ribs.

"You realise everybody in the entire school is going to know who you are by the end of the day?" she whispered.

"Shit, really?"

"Oh yeah." she grinned and I got the distinct impression that she was probably going to be the reason for that. I groaned softly and turned my attention back to Hiro who had dropped the register and had begun pacing the stage as he talked.

"The first thing you will learn in this class – and if nothing else let this be the only thing you learn – will be how to perform to your audience." he stated. I hastily pulled a notebook and pen out of my bag. This was going to be important and I didn't want to miss any of it. "Why is knowing how to do this properly important, Tate?" Figures I'd be the first one to get picked on to answer.

"Because if you can't perform well then you're not doing the best you can for your audience and there's not very much point in not." I stated. A small smirk tugged at the corner of Hiro's lips.

"Good answer." he replied. "Now to perform like a professional takes…" The rest of what he had been about to say was cut off by the back door of the auditorium crashing against the wall with a loud bang as it opened. Everyone turned to the source of the noise. From where I was sitting there were too many heads in the way for me to see who was coming in this late.

"Fuck, not him!" Mariah muttered next to me.

"Who?" I asked quietly.

"Mr Hiwatari," Hiro called up to the person, irritated. "you'd better make the explanation as to why you are late to one of my lectures phenomenally good."

"I got stuck in traffic." came the gruff, slightly sarcastic reply. I felt my heart stop – I would have recognised that voice anywhere.

"Not good enough." Hiro told him. "See me after class, now sit down."

Heads turned back to the front of the class as Hiro began to resume his lecture (stressing the importance of being on time) but I kept my eyes towards the back. I had to know if it was him or not. The person blocking my view finally moved and I was able to see; slate grey hair that faded to black at the back, broad shoulders and a tight muscular chest. Our eyes locked for a moment before I blushed and turned back to the front.

"Oh shit!" I muttered to myself.

"What?" Mariah asked quietly. "Do you know him?"

"That's Kai," I replied trying to keep my voice steady. "my ex-boyfriend."

"Oh!" Mariah exclaimed after a short pause. "Awkward…"

 **Chapter title lyrics taken from 'Camera One' by Josh Joplin**


	2. Everyone Else In The Room Can See It

**I had forgotten how daft this story was and I bloody love it! Anyway hope you enjoy this installment and Max's first thoughts about Enrique were my first thoughts about Enrique when I was 12 :p**

"Hey Max," Tyson laughed happily as soon as he picked up the phone. "how's it going buddy? How's Scotland?"

"I'm in Wales but it's fine." I replied pinching the bridge of my nose to keep myself from berating him too much.

"Awesome!" Tyson replied. "So how's the new school? You have to let me know when you've settled in so I can come and visit you."

"Well I'm not the only reason you can come and visit here you know." I hinted.

"Oh yeah?" he asked. Did he really no know where I was going with this?

"Hiro?" I pressed.

"What about him?" Tyson asked and he sounded genuinely confused. Oh my god, my best friend is a moron!

"Why didn't you tell me he works here!?" I cried loudly, my voice rising in pitch. A couple of people who had been walking down the corridor turned to stare at me. I shot them an awkward smile before turning round to face the wall. "It wasn't like you didn't have plenty of opportunities to casually throw it into conversation." I hissed.

"I'm sorry buddy," he said. "I guess I just sort of forgot. I didn't think it would be that much of an issue."

"A heads up might have been nice." I muttered through gritted teeth.

"Okay I promise I'll give you fair warning next time." he stated. I wanted to ram my face into the wall but settled for taking a deep breath and counting to ten. I hope to god there won't be a next time.

"Tyson what did you forget to do this time?" Hilary called faintly from somewhere on his end of the line.

"Nothing important." Tyson called back.

"Nothing important?" I asked raising an eyebrow even though I knew he couldn't see me.

"Give me a break!" he whined. "I'm already in trouble because I used the last of the hot water this morning and she's super grumpy at the moment, I think she's PMSing."

"That's not the only reason woman are grumpy, you know." I pointed out.

"Yeah she's probably hungry 'cause she's been doing another one of those stupid diets." he remarked. I rubbed my temples in exasperation.

"That's not what I…" I began but realised it was no use. "Oh never mind." Tyson was never going to understand woman, how he even got a girlfriend is the first place is beyond me.

"So otherwise everything is okay?" he asked. I paused.

"Well yes and no." I hedged.

"What do you mean?" he asked. I took a deep breath.

"Kai's here."

"Who?"

"Kai – my ex-boyfriend." I reminded him.

"Oh yeah, him." he said as it dawned on him. He really does have the memory of a goldfish – I had told him about Kai, numerous times, but maybe I'm expecting a bit too much from him. "So what happened?"

"He walked into class late, I turned to see who it was and he saw me." I gave him the cliff-noted version of events.

"Then what did you do?" I asked.

"Nothing." I shrugged. "I turned my attention back to the class and tried to take in what Hiro was saying."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I don't know." I shrugged again. "Any suggestions?" I regretted them almost as soon as the words were out of my mouth.

"Here's what you need to do," he said. "and this is very, very important…"

"Yeah?"

"Don't fuck him." he finished. I lightly thumped my forehead against the wall in front of me. Well ask a stupid question…

"Thank you Tyson, you are a veritable fountain of wealth and knowledge. Did you not think that that was my number one priority when I realised that he was in my class?"

"Just checking." he said in defence. "You want my second piece of advice?"

"God help me, alright."

"What you have to do is make him really, really want to fuck you and then turn him down in front of everyone." he told me.

"Why are we friends?" I asked pinching the bridge of my nose again. I had forgotten that conversations with Tyson were often as draining as wading through treacle.

"Oh come on that's a good plan!" he cried.

"No…" I shook my head even though I knew he couldn't see me. "no it really isn't."

"Is that Max?" Hillary asked from somewhere in the background again.

"Yeah." Tyson told her.

"Give me the phone!" she snapped. I waited, listening to the shuffling of the phone being passed between the two of them, before Hillary's voice was in my ear. "Max?"

"Hi."

"Don't listen to Tyson," she told me. "he's an idiot." She's not wrong.

"I knew that."

"If your ex is in your class," she continued as if I hadn't spoken. "you need to carry on as you are; totally ignore him and become top of the class just to show him how much better off you are without him."

"That's basically what I said!" Tyson whined in the background.

"No it isn't." Hillary and I said in unison.

"Was still a good idea." he grumbled.

"When is your next class with him?" Hillary asked ignoring him. I pulled my timetable out of my back pocket.

"As far as I'm aware Wednesday morning." I said. I don't know why I was answering I had no idea who was in any of my other classes anyway. "Oh shit!" My jaw practically dropped as I finished scanning the rest of my timetable.

"What?" Hillary asked.

"I'm supposed to be in class right now!" I cried. I hurriedly stuffed my timetable back in my pocket. "Tell Tyson I'll call him later."

"Get going you idiot!" Hillary told me. I hung up and bolted to the lecture hall hoping to high Heaven that the teacher hadn't noticed that I wasn't there.

* * *

When I finally got to class I could already hear music coming from inside so I knew that I was late enough for the lesson to have already started. I looked in through the small window that was about head height and saw four people on the stage and the auditorium was full. Holy hell how large is this class? Unless there was some kind of whole school assembly and I missed the memo.

I cautiously pushed the door open (after seeing Hiro sitting in the front row) and hurried inside. Luckily the up-tempo pop song the four on stage were singing was also blasted at full volume so no one heard me. Also the audience (who, upon reflection, I realised was three-quarters female) were intently watching the stage so they wouldn't have noticed me anyway.

I scanned the auditorium desperate to find an empty seat I could sneak into without anyone noticing. Finally I spotted one. Unfortunately it was right in the very front in the middle of the row. Oh yay… lucky me.

Part of me was debating sneaking out again or remaining where I was until the performance was over but at that moment I realised that there was a vacant seat in the front row but also that Hiro was sitting at the end of that row. It was also at that moment that he turned to look in my direction. I instantly ducked to the floor, hiding behind the sea of other students. There was a good chance he may have seen me so sneaking out was no longer an option. My only option was to sneak down to that vacant seat at the very front.

Crawling most of the way on my hands and knees and popping my head up every now and again like a deranged meerkat to see how far away I was I finally made it to the seat at the front. I flopped into the seat and heaved a sigh of relief; now I could actually sit and enjoy the rest of the performance. Or so I thought…

Just as I was relaxing into the up-tempo beat of the typical 'na, na, na, na' section of the song one of the four (a blond of about my height and build with his shirt unbuttoned a little too low to be necessary) slid off the stage and landed right in front of me. He practically strutted towards me, staring at me the entire time with a strange look in his eyes.

My entire body froze up as he reached me, taking a lock of my hair and twisting it round his finger as he stared into my eyes and sang as if only to me, like the rest of the auditorium didn't exist:

"Baby you light up my world like nobody else.

The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed.

But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,

You don't know…"

He slipped his hand round the back of my neck and used that hold as leverage so that he could press a kiss to my forehead before bounding back towards the stage as if nothing had happened. The girls around me, who had been practically salivating as he had been touching me, were screaming at the stage. All I could do was stare, too shocked to move or do anything but wait for the performance to be over.

The song finally came to a close and Hiro thanked 'Vocal Majesty' (which I guessed was the name of the group) and they left the stage, waving at the crowd as they did. I continued to sit there, transfixed and frozen, staring at the stage for the next fifteen minutes not taking in a word that was being said.

Finally Hiro finished and everyone began to file out of the auditorium. I stayed in my seat until everyone was gone, still reeling from the embarrassment of being accosted by a hot singing stranger. When I thought it was safe to move I got to my feet. I was about to leave when I heard someone call over to me. I turned to the direction of the voice and saw 'Vocal Majesty' appearing from backstage. The blond one who had accosted me ran over.

"Good, you're still here." he grinned. He spoke with an Italian accent that I hadn't noticed when he was singing.

"Um yeah." I replied wondering where he was going with this.

"Good, I didn't want you to leave without talking to you first." he said. He held out his hand. "I'm Enrique."

"Max." I said shaking his hand. If he's Italian (which I'm guessing he is judging by the accent) why does he have a Spanish name? Oh my god, Max, you can't just ask people why they have Spanish names! Enrique's grin widened as he realised who I was.

"The first year scholarship student?"

"That's me." I replied. Seriously how does word travel this quickly around a school this large?

"That's so cool!" Enrique exclaimed. "We're all third years." He gestured to the other three who had joined us.

"Cool!" I said trying my best to keep my cool. Oh my god one day in and I'm already talking to third years. BBA third years are like the best of the best as the end of year exams are notoriously hard to pass.

"This is Oliver, Robert and Johnny." he told me, introducing me to each one of them in turn. Oliver was short with a lilting French accent, Robert was tall and very English, and Johnny had a lot of reddish brown hair and a thick Glaswegian accent that I could just about understand.

"It's nice to meet you guys." I said smiling as I shook each of their hands.

"Enrique," Oliver said. "have you said your piece yet? We should be getting back to rehearsals." Enrique slapped his palm to his forehead.

"No, I forgot." he said before turning to me. "I just wanted to say about earlier when we were performing…"

"Yeah about that…" I said rubbing the back of my neck awkwardly.

"I'm so sorry, dude," he continued as if I hadn't spoken. "there was supposed to be a girl sitting there."

"It's totally fine." I replied feeling more than a little relieved. "You just took me by surprise that's all."

"Right back at you," he grinned. "but didn't want to show it as I was performing."

"Our Enrique is such a little performer." Olive chuckled, slinging an arm around his shoulders.

"Yeah too much, all the bloody time." Robert muttered darkly while Johnny rolled his eyes. Enrique just laughed and shrugged.

"What can I say? I'm really good at what I do." he said.

"Well the girls certainly seemed to enjoy it." I laughed.

"They always do…" Johnny stated and from his tone it sounded very much like he was sick to death of Enrique's antics.

Enrique just shrugged and grinned as if he didn't care, which he probably didn't.

"So are you going to the Fresher's Party tonight?" he asked.

"Maybe." I replied. "I haven't decided yet." I was still very undecided whether I actually wanted to go to this party or not but everyone seemed quite insistent in me going.

"You really should," Enrique grinned. "it's so much fun. We'll be performing, there's always loads of booze and I'm bringing Grappa." I have had Grappa before (again at a Fresher's Party at my old University) – it is an absolutely vile drink that you only need one shot of and you can taste it for three days afterwards. I smiled to be polite but I'm pretty sure it was unconvincing as my insides were already shrivelling at the thought of Grappa.

"Sure... maybe…"

 **Chapter title lyrics and inside song are from 'What Makes You Beautiful' by One Direction**


	3. But I Can't See Straight Anymore

**Hey everyone! Another installment before I go to work - this chapter contains scenes of uncontrollable drunkenness and scenes of a sexual nature :p hope you enjoy!**

Despite everybody's best efforts to get me to go to this party by the end of the day I was so exhausted I decided that I wouldn't go. Rather than spend the entire night partying and drinking like a normal student I would spend tonight catching up on some sleep and then I could actually focus on important things tomorrow. (Plus I was still kind of reeling from seeing Kai again and from Enrique using me as an extra so I really wanted to sleep today off). Well sleeping had been the original plan...

That was until my teachers insisted on giving us every single bit of extra-curricular work that they could under the sun! It was mostly short essays, like one thousand words of 'what performing means to me' and things like that, but it was still enough for me to want to get them done quickly so I could work on actual marked essays. I had four in total so I thought I'd do two, go to sleep and then do the other two in the morning.

However, much like my original plan of sleeping all night, this had been the plan and they do say that the best laid plans of mice and men will often go awry.

My concentration began to waver at around eight-ish when the party started, by half past I was already paying more attention to the quality of the music upstairs than the quality of what I was supposed to be writing. Then at about quarter to nine 'The Chief' came back to the room, we chatted for a bit then he opened up his laptop and Dizzy joined the conversation. I made as much polite conversation as I could before I tried to go back to my work but everything seemed to be out to distract me.

I had the party going on upstairs, the buzz of Kenny and Dizzy's chatter and the now ever present dread that at some point I was going to have to speak to Kai. I couldn't get my mind to focus and that was frustrating me more than anything.

Eventually (probably an hour and a half of being distracted) I save my essay and closed down my laptop. I told Kenny and Dizzy I was going upstairs and would see them later and left. This was such a bad idea – going to a party on my first night – but I was adamant that I was only going to stay for a few hours and I wasn't going to drink that much.

"Max you made it!" Mariah cried over the deafening music as I reached the fifth floor corridor.

"You having a good time?" I shouted back over the music.

"God yes!" she cried throwing an arm around my shoulders. As she leaned in close to me I could smell the alcohol radiating off her; she was pretty pissed already. "Come with me, we're about to start a new game."

"New game of what?" I asked as she dragged me down to, what I assumed was, her room where a large group of people were sitting in a circle on the floor with an empty gin bottle in the centre.

"'Shots: Kiss, Truth or Dare'!" Mariah cried happily. Oh lord this did not sound like a good idea. "And as you need to catch up you get to go first."

"Thanks." I said as she handed me a shot of something clear. I downed the shot without smelling it, assuming it was vodka or gin but as soon as it hit the back of my throat I realised it wasn't. As I coughed and spluttered I felt someone clap me on the back. I looked round through watery eyes and saw Enrique grinning at me,

"Gotta get you caught up." he said.

"Thanks." I wheezed, still coughing against the taste of the Grappa. "So what do I do now?" I asked once I could speak again.

"You spin the bottle and get smooching whoever it lands on." Mariah said.

"Don't I get a say in what I do?" I asked.

"Nope." she replied, popping the 'p' at the end, shaking her head and grinning. "First round you gotta kiss or Grappa."

"I just did Grappa." I protested.

"Penalty for being late." Enrique grinned. I raised an eyebrow at him. Clearly any penalty you had to take would be met with Grappa so I might as well just get on with it and save my liver from the torture.

"Fine." I muttered and Mariah cheered with delight as I made my way over to the circle. I sat in between a tall, skinny, black guy in a basket ball shirt and a huge guy in dungarees with a very tiny ponytail.

"This is Max everyone." Mariah introduced me as she gave the bottle a good, hard spin. "He'll be joining us this round."

I watched the bottle as it span, preferring to do that than try to work out who it was going to land on or who I wanted it to land on. There was a tiny part of me that was worried I'd look up and find myself face to face with Kai but I knew that was ridiculous – he doesn't really do parties and socialising. It was only when the bottle cane to a stop that I felt brave enough to look up. The bottle was pointing at the person sitting opposite me: a boy in a baseball hat and shirt with a mess of reddish brown hair falling in front of one of his eyes.

"Hi." I said.

"Hey," he replied. "I'm Michael."

"Max." I introduced myself.

"The scholarship student?" he asked.

"That's me." I said.

"Cool." he said before placing his hand on my cheek and pulling me into a kiss.

It was bizarre. Not the kiss, the kiss was pretty hot, but kissing a guy I had just met in a circle of people (only three of whom I had met before) who were all cheering as soon as they saw tongues enter the mix. Michael was a very good kisser, I'll give him that, but it still felt odd doing in in front of a room of people starting at us.

"Time's up." someone eventually called and Michael pulled away returning to his seat. It was only then that I realised he had been sitting next to a pretty drunk Emily. He put his arm around her shoulder and she grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him down for a pretty heated kiss.

"Enjoy the show?" Michael asked, smirking.

"Definitely." she replied before kissing him again.

"Get a room you two." Mariah laughed.

"Who knew straight laced little Emily was into watching her boyfriend get off with other guys." the tall guy next to me said, whistling in surprise.

"What?" I asked.

"Michael and Emily," he reiterated. "they've been together for about a year and a half." I looked over at Michael and Emily who were still kissing furiously.

"I would not have put them together." I said.

"I know right." he said. "when you see them together they're an odd couple and when you get to know them they're an even odder couple but they just sort of work."

"That's sweet." I said.

"Yeah." he turned to me and extended his hand. "Eddie."

"Max." I said shaking it. "So I did my thing what happens now?" I asked after a pause. Eddie took a shot off a tray behind him and handed it to me.

"Do this and spin again." he told me.

"What?!"

"It would normally be the person it landed on but Michael's kind of preoccupied so it gets bounced back to you." he replied.

"But I..." I began to protest.

"Kiss, Truth or Dare Maxie?" Mariah asked giggling. I sighed. There was no way I was getting out of this.

"Truth." I stated, deciding to go with the safest option, before downing the shot. The Grappa hit the back of my throat. "Son of a bitch!"

* * *

Six rounds of the circle and I was absolutely hammered. No matter what I did I ended up taking a shot and, lucky me, the shot was always Grappa (damn you Enrique). I was still just about vertical but I had made up my mind to be as quiet and as still as possible so I wouldn't get more shots of Grappa handed to me... and so I wouldn't fall over.

"Hey," Mariah said suddenly. "let's play Seven Minutes in Heaven!"

"What?" I asked.

"I think that sounds like an amazing idea." Enrique said putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to his chest.

"Are we twelve?" I asked. I don't even remember the last time I played Seven Minutes In Heaven... probably when I was twelve.

"Oh come on Maxie," Emily giggle heaving me to my feet.

"Yeah it will be fun." Michael added helping her to push me in the direction of a closet.

"Do I get a say in this?" I asked.

"Nope." Enrique grinned.

"We'll spin and send someone in in a minute." Mariah said tying a blindfold around my eyes. "Just sit tight and your seven minutes will start when they close the door." With that she shoved me into the closet and shut the door behind me. I had wanted to protest some more but I was a bit too drunk to do it before the door closed.

It wasn't that long before the door opened and closed again. I waited. I could hear the other person breathing so I reached out in the hope of finding them. I heard them chuckled softly before they linked their fingers with mine. Even through the haze of Grappa I still wanted to try and work out who I was in here with.

The other person let go of one of my hands and tilted my chin upwards (that was a good sign; they were taller than me at least). I could feel their breath ghosting against my lips. I leaned forward trying to capture their lips with mine. They tilted their face so that my lips just brushed their cheek. I felt them lean close to my ear.

"Not yet." a deep voice whispered. Okay so at least I could guess that the person in here with me was a guy. It could have been a very masculine sounding girl but as I raised a hand to find their chest my hand fell against flat so I was pretty confident that it was a guy. He took hold of my shoulders and spun me round, pressing me up against the wall in front of me and pressing his body right up against mine. I could feel something hard pressing against my backside. Yep, definitely a guy.

A pair of soft lips began to trace down my neck leaving a trail of the gentlest of kisses, starting at my ear and going down. I felt teeth graze the join between my neck and my shoulder and my head began to spin. The man behind me took both of my hands in one of his and pinned them to the wall above my head while his other hand ran down my chest and down to my crotch. As he gently teased my neck with his teeth he rubbed his hand over my crotch until I was panting and gasping. Even though it was through my shorts both sensations together were enough to get me half hard. He slipped his hand below the band of my shorts and began to stroke me though my boxers; that was much more powerful.

"Oh god!" I moaned and bucked my hips into his hand. I heard him chuckle hotly against my ear and before I knew what was happening he had spun me round again so that I was facing him. With my hands still pinned above my head so that there was no possible way for me to escape he slammed his lips against mine.

He wasted no time and before I had registered what was happening he licked my top lip trying to coax my mouth open. I was more than happy to oblige. The alcohol was making me delirious and the feeling of his hand rubbing against my rapidly growing erection was making me dizzy. I was desperate to touch him and I still had no idea what he looked like or if I had even noticed him sitting in the circle outside. I think he could tell because he pulled back slightly and I whined in protest (not my finest moment I will admit). He chuckled again before diving back in to kiss me. The sensation of touch and sound alone was getting too much for me and I knew that if this continued I was going to go crazy but then...

"Time's up!" I heard Mariah cry joyfully from the other side of the door. The other person pulled his hand out of my shorts and pulled away from my completely. I tried to steady my breathing as I heard the door open. I pulled the blindfold off as light assaulted my eyes. "Did you boys have fun?" Mariah asked, giggling.

"We certainly did." the other person practically purred. I waited until I had gotten used to the light before I cast a glance at him. I felt my knees weaken; tall, dark, with cat like features and golden eyes, his black fringe was pushed out of his eyes with a red headband while the rest of it was kept off his face in a long sleek ponytail that reached his waist. He was gorgeous. He turned to smirk at me and my brain failed me even more.

"Hi." I breathed completely taken in by just how good looking this guy was. "I'm Max." He chuckled again.

"I know." he said softly. "I'm Rei." God, his voice! Just hearing it was making me wish that we had had more time in that closet.

"So..." I began. I wanted to keep talking to him but I had no idea what to say and the fog of lust and alcohol really wasn't helping my coherency.

"Do you want to carry on where we left of in my room?" Rei asked raising an eyebrow suggestively. Behind him I could see Mariah picking out her next victim to be shoved in the closet to wait for someone and I knew that if I stayed I would end up in there again and there would definitely be more Grappa involved. I mean it wasn't exactly as if I was doing something I shouldn't be...

"Yes."

* * *

A heated moan escaped my lips as Rei shoved me up against his bedroom door. My fingers ran through his hair grasping and pulling hard enough for him to wince. He grabbed a fistful of mine and tugged sharply forcing my head backwards and my lips to fall open. I thought he was going to kiss me but instead he sunk his teeth into the join between my neck and shoulder. I moaned at the delicious mixture of pain and pleasure. There was probably going to be a mark there in the morning but I couldn't even begin to care.

The hand that wasn't in my hair slipped underneath the hem of my t-shirt and Rei began to push it up. He let go of my hair and pulled my shirt off before discarding his own and slamming his lips against mine again. God, the feeling of skin of skin was amazing – everything was heightened by the alcohol burning through my system and the fact that I was still incredibly horny from our excursion in the closet.

Everything seemed to be moving so quickly that before I knew it Rei had me flat on my back on his bed as he traced hot, open mouthed kisses down my chest to the hem of my shorts. He had both them and my boxers off almost as quickly, like he would die if he didn't get my out of my clothes as fast as possible, and I felt his lips wrap around my cock.

"Fuck! Rei!" I moaned loudly as I felt his warm, wet tongue running up the underside of my cock. I bucked my hips up but he pushed them back down onto the mattress. My head was spinning and my heart was pounding and I barely registered the sound of gel being squirted out of a tube until I felt cold, slick fingers pushing inside me. The moans were falling hard and fast from my lips as a first, second and soon a third finger opened me up, preparing me for something bigger and better. I was just about able to clock Rei, slipping out of the last of his clothes, ripping open a condom packet, slipping it onto his cock and coating himself in more of the lube.

"You ready for this?" he whispered hotly in my ear as he positioned himself between my legs.

"God yes!" I moaned as I felt the tip of his cock against my entrance. He pressed his lips to mine as he sunk into me, both of us moaning into each other's mouths. There was a part of me who couldn't handle this – it was all happening too fast and too suddenly – but as Rei pulled out and began to slam back in again at a furious pace I couldn't even begin to care.

My fingers clawed at his back and shoulders as he slammed into me, driving me closer and closer to the edge. His hand slipped between our bodies and he began to pump my cock in time with his thrusts. His fingers still had traces of the lube on them and that only heightened the pleasure. I was so close to the edge that one more particularly hard and well placed thrust and I was coming all over both of our stomachs. I felt him explode inside me a few thrusts later and the world seemed to collapse around the both of us.

 **Chapter title lyrics taken from 'Just Dance' by Lady Gaga feat. Colby O'Donis**


	4. Watching You Is The Only Drug I Need

**Well hello :D hope you've been enjoying this so far, I know I certainly have! Anyway here is the next installment with the fallout from the last chapter and my own bullshit science for why Kai has different colour eyes every season (you know aside from hella lazy continuity) enjoy**

Oh sweet ever loving Jesus my head! I awoke feeling as if I had been at sea all night. My stomach lurched every single time I moved, my head was pounding and my mouth felt as if it was filled with sand. I had little recollection of what had happened the night before but as I heard someone (male) stir next to me I realised I my clothes were strewn across the floor and I realised that I wasn't in my room it all came flooding back to me like a horrific unstoppable tidal wave.

I had had sex with a complete stranger who I had met that night – although at least I knew that his name was Rei. No idea what his second name was but I could remember that much at the very least. God damn it why did I go to the party? Why did I agree to play that stupid game in the first place? Why did I drink so much Grappa? Although that last one wasn't exactly my fault (damn you Enrique).

Rei stirred next to me but didn't wake up. Very slowly so as not to wake him (and to keep myself from vomiting) I turned and looked at the clock on his bedside table. I was six thirty. That was good. I could sneak out of here as quietly as I could and hope that Rei had been as drunk as I was and not remember anything from last night and sneak back to my own room before Kenny woke up and realised that I wasn't there.

I slipped out of bed as quietly as I possibly could, hoping against hope that Rei was a heavy sleeper and praying that my phone didn't go off. That would be just my luck – my phone rings and wakes him up as I'm trying to save myself of the embarrassment of firstly, having the awkward conversation of 'I'm really sorry I'm not usually like this that was a drunken mistake' and secondly, of having to do the walk of shame when other people were up.

I bent down to pick my shorts up and my stomach lurched horribly. I may have to just skip trying to make it look like I had been in my room all night and cut straight to hugging a toilet bowl. The room began to spin as I slipped them on and I closed my eyes trying to swallow the wave of nausea as I retrieved my t-shirt and boxers. I pulled my t-shirt on and stuffed my boxers in my pocket before making a beeline for the door.

I turned to look back at Rei as I slipped my shoes on and briefly toyed with the idea of leaving him a note. This was probably a bad idea because there was a very slim chance that he could wake up and have forgotten all about our little escapades in the closet and our even bigger escapades in his bedroom and I wouldn't have to explain myself to him. Also the more likely thing that was going to happen was he was going to remember me realise that I had left and track me down anyway. It wouldn't be hard; everyone in the school seems to know who I am. As I was weighing up my options Rei stirred again and I panicked, opened the door and bolted out of the room.

Outside in the corridor I slowed down to let my stomach settle. Practically running out of Rei's room had made everything spin horrifically and I felt even more as if I was having to chock down the urge to vomit – at least until I had gotten back to my own floor and I could throw up in piece. The corridor was still littered with rubbish from the previous night and there were a few people even sleeping in the door ways of rooms. Either they had been so drunk they had just passed out on the floor or, judging by one guy and girl, had been too horny to wait till they got to their own room.

By the time I had gotten back to my room it was ten to seven. It had taken me much longer than I had expected because I had to keep stopping and leaning against the wall to make the world stop spinning. Just as I had hoped Kenny was asleep so I threw all of my clothes into my laundry basket, pulled on some pyjama shorts and climbed into bed. I pulled the covers over my head and it was like heaven. It was quiet, it was dark and I could lie here in a ball of my own liver failure until I either felt better or I had to go to class. Or so I thought...

No sooner had I gotten into a comfy position that wouldn't require me to move or end with my chocking on my own vomit if I did throw up in my sleep then Kenny's alarm began to go off. It was like someone had set off a police siren inside my head. I groaned as the sound continued as, apparently, Kenny seemed to be sleeping through it. When it became clear that he was still asleep and hadn't heard his alarm I heaved myself up and hit what I hopped was the off button.

The sound stopped. I sighed happily and returned to my previous position of enclosing myself in duvet. About five minutes later I realised that what I had pressed was, in fact, the snooze button as the alarm began to pound against the insides of my head again. This time Kenny seemed to have heard it as I heard him get up and turn it off himself. I hoped that would be the last thing I would hear so that I could just fall asleep for a few hours before I had to go to class but that was also wishful thinking.

Kenny switched on his laptop and gave Dizzy a cheery 'good morning' before the two of them began to chat away. I groaned softly, the sound muffled by my duvet and my face shoved into my pillow. Everything was conspiring against me to not be able to sleep off this hangover so I might as well just get up and try to do something.

I heaved myself out of bed and mumbled a greeting to Kenny and Dizzy before grabbing my towel and heading for the shower, hoping that that would make me feel a little bit more human if I wasn't allowed to sleep. I hung my towel up and just as I was about to turn on the water I saw a glass that someone had left on the side of the sink. It looked like water so, thinking nothing of it and thinking it might make me feel better, I downed the contents. Unfortunately for me it wasn't water and I spat as much of the Grappa as I could into the sink, again fighting the urge to vomit. God fucking damn it Enrique!

* * *

By the time class rolled around I was still feeling rough but a little less like I had been reanimated. I had showered, eaten, drank something that didn't have an alcohol percentage and even managed to get a bit of work done before heading over to Hiro's class. Seeing as I had been late when 'Vocal Majesty' had performed (and I'm pretty sure he knew) and now I was going to turn up horrifically hungover I wasn't exactly making the best of impressions on him. As long as I could get through this class without passing out or vomiting and could answer questions if I was asked then I should be fine.

"Right," Hiro stated taking a seat on the edge of the stage. "I want to get you guys into the habit of performing on demand so over the next couple of lessons I'll pick a couple of people each hour to perform a piece that I give them with little preparation." My stomach dropped. Knowing my luck (as the fancy scholarship student that everyone seemed to be fascinated with) I would be the one who was picked first for an exercise like this.

"How are you going to pick who performs when?" someone asked from the back. Hiro picked up a hat that had been sitting, upside down, on the edge of the stage next to him and held it up.

"All your names have been written down and placed in here." he stated. "I pull your name out, you come and perform no questions asked unless you have some kind of medical reason that prevents you from doing so and yes that medical reason has to be something with your voice – hungover is not a medical condition." he added in response to someone a few seats to the side of me putting their hand up. The offender lowered their hand. Hiro began to dig into the hat. Mariah, who was sitting behind me, leaned forward to me to whisper in my ear.

"Ten quid says it's rigged so that you're up first." she snickered.

"God I hope not." I muttered. Hiro pulled out a small piece of paper and unfolded it.

"Kon," he said as he got to his feet. "you're up."

"Damn it!" Mariah muttered.

"Pay me later." I chuckled back. I was very glad that I wasn't up first. I actually wanted to make a good impression the first time I performed, as I knew I had to prove something to Hiro at the very least, and I was not in any position to do that today.

The lights in the auditorium went down and music started up. I was ready to settle myself in for another performance I could relax through but then a spotlight came on and the person on stage began to sing. It was Rei. Of course he was in my year and in one of my classes and of course he has an amazing singing voice and looks really good up on stage. And of course he's clocked me sitting in the front row – did I not learn my lesson last time this happened? He smirked at me as he sang and I shook my head at him in what I hoped was a gesture of 'don't you fucking dare' but apparently he didn't get the message.

Much in the same way that Enrique had done the day before Rei slid off the stage and made his way over to me as he sang. I continued to fix him with the most unimpressed look that I possibly could hoping it would deter him from whatever he was about to do. God I hope I wasn't going to get kissed in front of the class again – at this rate I'd start getting some kind of reputation. Although by this point I probably already did have. Rei winked at me and stroked my cheek as he carried on singing.

"I can be myself now finally

In fact there's nothing I can't be

I want the world to see you be with me

Hey Soul Sister ain't that Mister Mister on the radio, stereo,

The way you move ain't fair you know

Hey Soul Sister I don't want to miss a single thing you do tonight."

He continued to tease me for a few more lines, all the time I sat there staring at him with a raised eyebrow, before he returned to the stage to finish his song. Unlike when Enrique had accosted me in the front row there seemed to be less people still looking at me after it was over. Maybe this was a common occurrence with Rei.

"Someone's pulled." Mariah cackled in my ear. Maybe not. Once the music had died down Hiro jumped back on the stage again.

"Thank you, Kon, the singing was very good." he said. "Although next time unless you have planned a stunt like that beforehand please refrain from assaulting members of the audience. As much as women in their mid to late thirties enjoy the attention from young men like yourself I'm pretty sure that Tate was rather uncomfortable."

"I'll bear that in mind." Rei replied but still turned to smirk at me before returning to his seat.

"This is one of the most important things you can do as a performer," Hiro began as Rei sat down. "know you're audience. There are audiences that you can get away with certain things and audiences that you can't. You have to learn how to gauge the difference in only a few seconds." I turned and locked eyes with Rei again. He winked at me and licked his lips. I turned back to Hiro, my face heating up. I really needed to talk to him.

* * *

As luck (or not depending on how you chose to look at it) would have it Rei was waiting for me outside after class was over. He looked really good leaning against the wall with his arms crossed behind his head and there was a part of me that thought maybe I should see what it was like to be with him while sober. From what I can remember through the drunken haze it was incredibly good... scratch that it was amazing! Nope that was a bad train of thought to hop onto – this is so not what I need right now.

"Hey," Rei purred as I approached him. "enjoy the show?"

"It did definitely teach me one thing that I already learnt yesterday." I stated.

"Oh yeah? And what was that?" Rei asked smirking.

"Not to sit in the front row." I replied bluntly. Rei chuckled.

"I'm sorry." he said. "It was just too perfect not to and after you bolted this morning I thought it would be even more fun and I was right. Just seeing you looking all embarrassed and trying to threaten me off was priceless." He leaned in close so he could whisper in my ear. "Almost as priceless as seeing your face as you cum was." I could feel myself blushing and getting more and more annoyed.

"I'm sorry I skipped out on you this morning." I stated. "I just thought it would be easier."

"Easier for who?" Rei asked. "You or me?"

"Either." I shrugged. "Listen, Rei, last night was amazing but..."

"You're not the type who usually sleeps with someone when you first meet them." Rei finished for me. "That's cool, I get that."

"And I really, really want to make a good impression here."

"Well sure you do." he stated. "You're a scholarship student; you worked your arse off to get in here and people expect a lot from you."

"And I just don't want to get distracted by getting into something serious." I said.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Rei cut me off. "I never said anything about getting into something serious. I am not a serious relationship kind of guy."

"Okay."

"Last night was great but I'm not looking to date you or anything." Rei stated. I sighed with relief and smiled at him.

"Great." I said before I realised how that sounded. "Sorry that came out wrong."

"No offence taken." Rei laughed.

"So shall we just say that last night was a slight lapse of judgement on both of our parts and just be friends?" I asked.

"Sounds good to me." Rei grinned. "But if you ever fancy a repeat performance of last night when we're not both off our faces then I'd be happy to oblige. Last night was hot and I imagine that it would be even hotter if alcohol wasn't involved."

"I'll bear that in mind." I chuckled.

"Cause, seriously, that body of yours is weapons grade hot and we could have a lot of fun together just being friends who fuck." Rei stated.

"Let me get a little bit more settled in to this place first and I'll let you know." I replied. "But, please, less of the theatricality in class next time." Rei laughed.

"Fine." he stated. "It was just too perfect an opportunity not to though." I said nothing but rolled my eyes. "Plus you should have seen the death glares that I was getting from Hiwatari, it was too good an opportunity to pass up."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I know Hiwatari is a grumpy twat anyway but the way he was glaring at me when I was practically on top of you – hell if looks could kill." Rei whistled. "Either I've done something to piss him off that I have no idea about or his need to stab me with his eyes has something to do with you."

"It's complicated." I hedged. Rei nodded as if he could probably guess what I meant by that (and to be perfectly honest I wouldn't have been too upset if he had worked it out, it wasn't exactly difficult).

"Listen, whatever it is it's your business but if me being around you is going to get me death glares from Hiwatari then you can expect to be seeing a lot more of me in the future." he stated.

"Pardon?" I hadn't expected that. I had expected him to say that he didn't want to get involved, that he didn't want the drama or that it would be way too much hassle to even be friends if he was going to be getting the stink eye from Kai every time he saw us talking.

"What can I say I love pissing him off." Rei shrugged, grinning.

"You're insane." I said shaking my head.

"Get used to it Sunshine." he laughed. He pulled out a pen and a piece of paper, wrote something down and handed it to me. "Here's my phone number. If you want to hang out at all drop me a text because I wasn't kidding when I said that I wanted to be friends or that I wanted to fuck again if you felt like it."

"Thanks." I said putting the number in my pocket. "I'll drop you a text later with my number and we can sort something out."

"You better." he stated. "Or I'll just have to up my game and give you a lap dance or something next time I perform in class."

"I beg you not to." I replied. Rei chuckled, kissed me softly on the cheek and ruffled my hair.

"See you round Maxie." he said and turned to leave. Once he was out of sight I sighed with relief; that could have gone much worse. I'm not saying I think of myself as some kind of Casanova who can just click his fingers and get any guy that he wants but I know that people become weird after sex. They say they just want to be friends who fuck and then the next thing you know they're picking out curtains and talking about what songs you're going to have at your wedding. That I do not need right now.

What I do need right now is to go to the library and finish off all the work that I was given yesterday. If I can do that then I can have a proper night's sleep tonight and not wake up for class with a hangover tomorrow. I pulled my school map out of my pocket and, seeing that I wasn't too far away from the library, turned around and began to walk in that direction.

I rounded a corner, my eyes focused solely on the map so I could work out where it was I was going. I really should have been paying more attention because I collided with something solid that felt like a person. I looked up and my stomach dropped into my shoes. I had walked into the one person I really could not handle seeing or talking to today – I had walked right into Kai. He turned to face me and I felt my heart skip.

He still looked as good as I remembered and I couldn't stop my mind from jumping back to the last night we spent together. God, I wanted nothing more than for him to just not say anything at all, shove me up against the wall and kiss me like nothing had happened. Although at the same time I really didn't want that to happen – I was trying to get over him. I thought I already was but by the pure and simple fact that I still wanted him to kiss me after all this time showed that I probably wasn't.

"Hi." I said a little breathlessly. Damn it! I would have liked to have not sounded so pathetic the first time I spoke to him.

"Hello." he replied flatly. Still the same old Kai as ever; barely says anything and when he does he sounds like he's trying to hold back the urge to shove a pencil through your skull.

"I didn't expect to see you here." I stated. I wanted to run. I did not want to be standing here having this or any conversation with him but, at the same time, I couldn't leave. It would look to weird and it would be incredibly rude. Also I would have to speak to him sometime – we were in most of the same classes together. Yes, he broke my heart but I would have to face him eventually unless I deferred my place here and waited until he was likely to have graduated.

"Yeah, well..." Kai replied non-committally. If there was an end to that sentence it never came so I decided to fill the awkward silence.

"Your eyes changed again." I stated. Kai just blinked. I'll never forget the first time I saw Kai's eyes. They were this deep burgundy colour and at first I thought they were colour contacts but when I got a closer look and couldn't see the tell-tale ring around his iris I realised that that must be his natural eye colour. I had wanted to ask about it but I had thought it would seem rude so I didn't. It was only after his eyes changed colour that I plucked up the courage to.

Apparently Kai has a very rare genetic disorder of a pigment mutation of the iris, which causes his eyes to change colour every so often. When I had first met him his eyes were burgundy then they changed to grey and now they were a soft amethyst colour. That was one of the things that I had always loved about Kai – his eyes – and even now I found it hard to stop staring at them.

"Yeah." he shrugged. It wasn't a big thing for him anymore. He probably got sick of people pointing it out but he didn't say anything else. I opened my mouth to try and make some more polite conversation but he cut me off. "So what's going on between you and Kon?"

"Excuse me?" I asked. I don't know what I had expected but it certainly wasn't that.

"I said what is going on between you and Kon?" he asked again.

"I don't think that's any of your business." I replied defensively. After all Kai had been the one to leave me. When my parents got divorced I move to America with my mother and he said that we could make things work and it did for a few month but then I called him one day like I normally would and there was no answer. I left him messages but he never got back to me and when I finally did get through to an actual person they told me Kai had moved to Russia and not left a forwarding address and told me not to call back.

"Kon is a playboy," Kai stated. "not someone that you should be getting involved with."

"Again I don't think that is any of your business." I stated. "Who I am or who I am not friends with has nothing to do with you."

"Looked like a bit more than friends from where I was sitting." he said.

"Excuse me?" Now I was beginning to get really annoyed. How dare he make assumptions based on what he had seen in class. If he had been at the party last night and seen me with Rei there I would have been a little more understanding but he was just being a jerk for no real reason.

"I just want you to be careful." he told me.

"I don't need you looking after me, Kai." I replied. "I have been doing fine on my own for the last couple of years now and I don't need your help. I don't need your approval and I certainly don't need you telling me who I can and cannot be friends with, okay? I know we have most of the same lessons together and if we have to work with each other, for whatever reason, I will be civil but I don't want to see you otherwise so please just stay away from me and let me get on with my life."

If he had something else to say I didn't give him time to say it. I brushed passed him and carried on in the direction of the library, not turning back to see how he reacted to any of it. I could feel my hands shaking and I wanted to find a secluded corner of the library as fast as possible so that I could go and have a breakdown about what had just happened there and not be disturbed until it was out of my system.

 **Chapter title lyrics and inside song from 'Hey, Soul Sister' by Train**


	5. Decide If This Is Fate Or Chance

**Ah the joys of bumping into your ex after having no contact with them for ages and totes still being in love with them... sucks to be Max! The inspiration for the middle part of this chapter was taken from a post I read on fmylife ages ago and I thought it was funny, hope you enjoy :D**

After my run in with Kai the previous day I was already apprehensive about seeing him when I went to class the next morning but I had made my feelings on the matter perfectly clear. If he was going to be a dick about it and give me a hard time then that was his issue. I was perfectly happy to not have anything else to do with him and just get on with my time here. At least that is what I had been hoping would happen.

I was on my way to Hiro's class the following morning when I began to feel as if I was feeling followed. The route I had chosen to take was pretty deserted because I was already a little fed up with the stares I was getting from people and if I head someone whisper 'scholarship student' one more time I was going to go crazy. I had checked over my shoulder a few times but there was just this red headed guy behind me who seemed to be paying as little attention to me as I was to him. It wasn't until I was abut to turn down a different corridor when he called out to me.

"Hey!" There was a vaguely Russian tint to his accent and he sounded quite harsh so I stopped to wait for him. "You're Max Tate right?" he asked as he reached me.

"Yes." I replied. Here we go; someone else who knew who I was but I had no idea who they were and they were going to ask me numerous questions that they weren't going to listen to the answers to, they just really wanted to talk to me so that they could say they had spoken to the scholarship student everyone was talking about.

"Can I have a quick word?" the red headed guy asked.

"Sure." I shrugged.

"You're Kai's ex right?" he asked. That I hadn't expected.

"Um yeah..." I replied. "What's it to you?" I asked trying not to sound rude (although it came out just sounding rude). It might just be that this guy has heard that I used to date Kai and wants to know how he can break through his outer shell and get close to him. Kai is a very hard person to get through to so I could understand if someone was interested and heard he had an ex at the school they would want to talk to him.

"My name is Tala, I'm a friend of Kai's." he stated.

"Okay." I replied.

"I saw the two of you talking yesterday and just wanted to have a little chat with you." he said.

"Fire away."

"Okay I'll just get right down to the point." he said. "I want you to stay away from Kai."

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"Kai has had enough trouble from you over the years and he really doesn't need any more now that you're a student here too." Tala stated. "I know I probably seem like an arse-hole to you just coming up to you when I know nothing about you but I'm just looking out for my friend, you understand?"

"I understand." I replied flatly, trying not to lose my temper. "I can see where you're coming from but when I spoke to Kai yesterday I told him that I had no intention of spending time with him at all. So I appreciate what you're saying but I don't plan to go anywhere near Kai, congratulations he's all yours." I added as I turned to leave.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tala called after me.

"Whatever you think it means." I stated turning back to face him. "Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to be late for class."

* * *

I was already agitated from my conversation with Tala by the time I got to class and was just about focusing on what Hiro was saying. Rei had made a show of winking suggestively at me as I entered the room and I had felt Kai's eyes on me the entire time I had taken my seat next to Mariah. I hadn't looked over at him but I had just known that he was watching me. If this was going to continue I needed to make it crystal clear to Kai that staring at me in class was creepy and unnecessary.

Being new and having all this expectation thrown on me was stressing me out enough without having my ex staring at me all the time. Why was he staring at me anyway? He had been the one to leave me. I had tried to make it the relationship work the best that I could but when one of you is in America and the other is in Japan that's really difficult. He had been the one who bailed and moved without telling me where he was going or even giving me an explanation of why he was suddenly vanishing off the face of the earth.

I tried to shove it out of my mind as Hiro picked up his hat again and routed around inside it. I couldn't afford any distractions. I got lucky yesterday but there was still every chance that my name would be the one to come out of the hat. At least, thanks to Rei yesterday, I knew that it was random chance and I hadn't just been put in there so that Hiro could single me out and make it seem fair. He unfolded the piece of paper he had pulled out.

"This should be interesting." he stated. "Tate, you're up."

"Balls." I muttered to myself as I got up and made my way over to the stage. Considering how on edge I was this was not going to be a fun performance for me. At least I wasn't hungover this time. I hopped onto the stage and Hiro gave me a sheet of music.

"You've got thirty seconds and then show us what you're made of." he stated. I quickly scanned the sheet music and the lyrics. At least it was a song I vaguely recognised. Hiro handed me a microphone before leaving the stage. The lights in the auditorium dimmed but I could still feel Kai's eyes on me the entire time. I could feel Rei staring at me as well and having the both of them staring at me like that along with everyone else in the room my head was beginning to spin and I was starting to feel dizzy. I needed to hold it together! The lights snapped on on the stage and the music started up.

"Please, please tell me now honto no toko

Yes, no o te yawaraka ni hitotsu

Click, click kasuka ni todoita no wa hajimari no sign."

Oh shit! Oh fucking hell, what on earth did I just do? I had just translated the first part of the song into Japanese without thinking. Oh god this is bad, this is very bad. I looked out into the auditorium and people were still staring at me but now it was a confused kind of staring at me. I didn't even want to look at Hiro. After Rei's little improvisation yesterday I highly doubt that this is going to go down particularly well. It was too late to turn back now though – I'd started so I might as well carry on.

"Unmei ka guuzen ka kimeru ni wa mada hayai

Kajou na junjou ni midasareteku konna hazu ja nai no ni..."

I carried on as I had started until the song had ended and that felt like the longest three to four minutes of my entire life. Once it was over I stood there and waited for the fireworks. There was a burst of applause from the rest of the class as the lights came back up and it was only after it had died down that I felt it was safe to look over at Hiro.

"What the fuck was that?" he asked. His face was unreadable and I couldn't tell if he was angry, disappointed or just plain xenophobic.

"I'm sorry, I panicked." I replied.

"You panicked and translated a song, while performing it for the first time, into what I can only assume is your second language." Hiro stated speaking slowly as if to understand what I was actually telling him.

"Yeah..." I replied after a pause. Now I didn't want to look at anyone else. I knew that they'd al be staring at me like I was some kind of head-case and, to be fair to them, this was not a normal thing to do. Usually when people get stage fright they freeze up, they hit all the wrong notes they don't translate songs while singing them. Seriously, who does that? I was still waiting for the explosion when Hiro began to laugh.

"That's fucking priceless." he gasped through his laughter.

"Pardon me?" I asked. I was so confused by this point. Was he annoyed? Not annoyed? Angry? I really could not get a read on this guy.

"You realise normal people don't do what you just did, right?" he asked. "It takes a very special kind of strange to be able to do that convincingly."

"Yes." I replied. Hiro turned to the class.

"If I hadn't have said anything would any of you have known that that song was supposed to be in English?" he asked. Most people shook their heads. He turned back to me. "And that's because you kept performing. It doesn't matter if you fuck up as long as your audience doesn't realise that you've done it."

"Okay." I said and allowed myself to grin. I felt better now that I knew that he wasn't mad at me.

"Well done, Tate." Hiro said. "Although in future try to stick to just English unless the occasion calls for it."

"Okay." I nodded and practically ran off the stage, handing him the microphone as I passed. I practically fell into my seat as Hiro carried on with the lesson. Mariah gave me a nudge in the ribs and giggled.

"You're insane you know that right?" she whispered.

"I am so glad that's over." I whispered back.

"You know your ex keeps staring at you, right?" she added as Hiro pulled the next name out of the hat.

"I do." I replied. "I'm trying to ignore him."

"Good luck with that." she stated.

"Mariah Wong." Hiro called out.

"That's my cue." she giggled and bounded up to the stage. Against my better judgement I cast a glance over my shoulder and I saw Kai a few rows behind staring intently at me. That red headed guy from before, Tala, was nowhere to be seen but Kai's gaze was directly on me and it didn't seem as if he was going to look away any time soon.

* * *

I had ignored Kai as much as I could for the rest of class and my plan had been to hang around people as much as possible to deter Kai from wanting to talk to me. After class Mariah had said she was going to run and find Emily and the three of us would go to lunch together while I was still packing my things away. I had waited until I was practically the last person in the room before leaving thinking that Kai would be long gone by the time I got out. However I was wrong. By the time I left he was still waiting outside for me.

"What do you want?" I asked him as he practically cornered me as soon as I left the room.

"I just want to talk." he stated.

"I thought I made it perfectly clear yesterday that I did not want to talk." I told him.

"And I was going to respect that until you pulled your little stunt back there." he replied.

"I have no idea what you mean."

"Don't play dumb with me, Max, I know you do." he said.

"Then enlighten me," I said. "what was I doing with my 'little stunt'?" I added air quotes as I said it. It seemed childish but I wanted him to know I was being sarcastic.

"You deliberately sang that in a language you knew I'd understand." he stated. I rolled my eyes.

"You know not everything in my life is about you?" I asked. He remained silent. I sighed ."What do you want from me Kai?"

"I want an explanation." he stated.

"And I will give you the same one I gave Hiro." I replied. "He gave me a song to sing, I had a bit of stage fright and I panicked."

"And you knew I'd be able to understand you singing in Japanese." he said.

"And if I'd have sung it in English everyone would have been able to understand it." I pointed out.

"So why did you translate it?"

"It was not a conscious decision." I told him, my voice rising. "Why is that so hard for you to understand?"

"Continuing was a conscious decision though." he said smugly.

"I had started so I might as well finish." I said, pointing out the obvious. "You are reading way too much into this, can we please just drop the subject?"

"Max would you just..." Whatever he had been about to say was cut off by someone calling his name from down the corridor. Both Kai and I turned to see Tala coming towards us looking angry. Kai rolled his eyes. "Fuck." he muttered.

"What are you doing?" Tala asked Kai in Russian as he reached us.

"Having a conversation." Kai replied in kind. Tala grabbed Kai's arm and began pulling him in away in the direction he had just come from both of them speaking heatedly in Russian to each other. As they turned the corner Mariah and Emily appeared. Emily turned to stare after Kai and Tala as I went to meet them.

"What was all that about?" she asked.

"Yeah, Grump One and Grump Two seem to be in even worse moods than normal." Mariah pointed out.

"It's nothing." I said. "They were just arguing about me."

"You speak Russian?" Emily asked in surprise.

"Enough to know that they were arguing about me." I replied. Both Emily and Mariah stared at me. "Kai taught me bits when we were together but I don't know that much. Shall we go to lunch?" I asked, changing the subject. They both continued to stare at me so I began to walk in the direction of the cafeteria hoping that I had made it clear that that conversation was over and that I really didn't want to talk about it anymore. Shit! Why was this turning out to be so difficult?

 **Chapter title and inside lyrics taken from 'Click Your Heart' by Kazutomi Yamamoto**


	6. Welcome To The Rhythm Of The Night

**I was a bit unsure about this chapter when I first wrote it, but reading it back I really enjoyed it - I even enjoyed Tyson haha plus this is totally how Kai would ask out someone like Max :'D hope you enjoy**

About a month or so after I started at BBA Tyson called me and said that he was coming for a visit. He had managed to wrangle two reading weeks at his university from both of his departments and had enough time off to come and see me and stay for at least a week before he had to go back to class. This was a good time for him to come because, towards the end of November, BBA always had an Open Day for new prospective students and this happened to coincide with the week that Tyson was coming to stay.

As active members of the Student's Union for the First Years both Mariah and Emily were very excited about the Open Day. Whenever we got together to hang out the vast majority of the time they would end up planning for the stand they were going to open while I sat talking with Eddie, Michael, Rei, Mariah's brother Lee and his room-mate Kevin. I had gotten to know the guys pretty well and they were fun to spend time with (even if Rei did occasionally make the odd inappropriate comment).

Both Mariah and Emily had asked me if I wanted to help out and perform on the stand at the Open Day – using my status as scholarship student success story for the new kids hoping to apply. The idea didn't overly appeal to me – I was more than happy to help with the preparation for the day but on the actual day itself I was going to watch from the sidelines. This was met with a great deal of bribery from both of them and assurances from the rest of the guys that they were going to be performing. Eventually I pulled out the 'Tyson Card' and said if they really needed me then I would otherwise I was going to be spending my time with him.

On the day of Tyson's arrival I was waiting at the train station for him with a huge sign that I had written his name on in large letters. I knew he'd find it funny and, even though I was getting some strange looks from the other people waiting at the station, I was really looking forward to seeing his face when he saw it. As his train pulled into the station I held the sign up as high as I could and eventually I saw him hanging out of the window giving me a double thumbs up.

When the train stopped I watched him disappear through the window and emerge a few seconds later when the doors opened carrying a couple of bags. He ran towards me and jumped on me tackling me to the floor as he reached me. Both of us collapsed in a fit of laughter and – dumbass though he is – I realised just how much I had actually missed him. We got to out feet when a particularly stern looking conductor began to make his way over to see what all the commotion was about.

"So how was the journey?" I asked as he slung one of his bags over his shoulder and picked up the other. I grabbed my sign and we made our way over to the exit.

"Not too bad." he said. "I did all my stuff for the reading weeks so that's all out the way and I can concentrate on having a good time with my best bud." I whistled in amazement.

"I know the train journey from London to Wales is long but you really did two whole weeks worth of reading just on that train?" I asked in surprise. In the time I had known Tyson he had never really been one for sitting down and actually doing his course reading. He shrugged and grinned at me.

"I may have embellished on that slightly." he stated.

"How so?" I asked. I knew there was something wrong with that picture. Tyson sitting on a train with a book was not something I had ever expected to see in my lifetime. He was usually too busy staring out of the window.

"I did two weeks worth of Sparks Notes." he grinned.

"You're terrible." I laughed bumping my shoulder against his. "So how's everything at home?"

"It's good." he nodded. "It's great in fact. Hillary's looking at fellowships or internships on partnerships... some kind of ship for next year when she graduates and I'm getting ready to look for work placements."

"That's amazing." I replied. "I can't believe you guys are graduating this year."

"Just think that would have been you as well if you hadn't ditched us for your performing school." he chuckled.

"I supposed I could have held out till I graduated." I shrugged. "Would have made my mum happy and maybe I wouldn't have the problems I do now."

"How are things with the old sour puss?" he asked. I knew he was referring to Kai. I shrugged again.

"To be honest I'm just trying to stay out of his way." I replied.

"I really want to meet him." Tyson said.

"Why?"

"Well to see what got you so frazzled when you first saw him here and to see if he really is as grumpy as you make him sound." he explained.

"Believe me he is as grumpy as I make him sound." I chuckled. "To be honest I doubt you'll see him much today at the very least."

"Why not?" Tyson asked.

"The open day is a very social thing and, let's face it, Kai isn't the most social of people." I replied.

"Good point." he agreed. "How did you and he even get together in the first place?"

"There's not all that much exciting or interesting to it really." I replied. "We were at school together and I always sort of had a thing for him, even before I realised that I was gay. Then one day I was walking home from school and it started raining. I darted into a book shop and was going to wait until the rain had died down and saw Kai in there. We were pretty much the only two people in there so I tried to have a conversation rather than stand there in awkward silence."

"So did you talk until it stopped raining and then go for dinner or something?" Tyson asked sounding very much like Mariah and Emily when they had asked me the same question.

"No we stood there in awkward silence when I realised I wasn't getting anywhere." I replied. "It stopped raining and I left but when I got home I realised I had actually left my notebook at the shop. I was going to go and get it after school the next day but it was sitting on my desk when I got there. I knew Kai had put it there and he had left me a note inside asking me to meet him on the roof at lunchtime. I went up there, to thank him for returning my notebook, and he kissed me. That's pretty much how it started."

"That's really quite adorable." Tyson said and I could practically see the flowers and stars circling his head like something out of a shoujo manga. I rolled my eyes.

"It would have been if he hadn't disappeared off the face of the earth after I had moved to America, even though he promised that we could make it work."

"See this is why you need to find better boyfriends." Tyson said. "Speaking of are there any at this new place." I thought of both Kai and Rei.

"It's complicated." I replied.

* * *

Once we had gotten back to campus I had taken Tyson up to my room so that he could drop off his stuff and introduced him to Kenny and Dizzy. Tyson had been fascinated by Dizzy but still couldn't get a better explanation out of either of them as to why the laptop talked. After he had sorted out all of his stuff and Kenny had gone back to whatever work it was he was doing, saying that he would meet us downstairs later, Tyson and I headed down to the Open Day.

"So this is all for people who want to come here?" he asked as we looked around the various stalls. I nodded.

"I think it's also supposed to be a chance for the students who already go here to showcase their work and have some fun with each other and people who might end up coming here too." I replied.

"So why aren't you doing anything?" he asked.

"Because I wanted to spend time with my best friend who I don't get to see very often now that we live on different sides of the country." I told him.

"That sounds like an excuse." he grinned. I pulled a face at him. "I could have gone to see Hiro."

"Does Hiro even know you're here?" I asked pretty sure that Tyson would have forgotten to tell him that he was coming.

"Oh yeah I should text him." Tyson stated. I just rolled my eyes and shook my head. I was never surprised by Tyson anymore. He pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to Hiro while I guided him through the crowd over to the stall Mariah and Emily had set up. It looked really good – with a large (for the space they were in) makeshift stage, a proper lighting rig and sound system all set up. Which was why I was surprised that there was no one anywhere near them. I guided Tyson over as he put his phone away.

"Max please tell me you're hear to save us from boredom?" Emily asked.

"Hey Emily." I greeted. "What do you mean by boredom?"

"I'm sorry did you have to fight through a massive crowd I can't see to get here?" she asked sarcastically. "We're dying on our feet out here."

"I don't get it." Mariah said. "'The Chief' rigged up all this cool equipment and we were going to try and make it like a karaoke thing but no one is interested."

"What's your sales pitch like?" Tyson asked her.

"Excuse me?" Mariah replied.

"Your sales pitch." Tyson said again. "How you're getting people interested?"

"I guess we didn't really have one." she replied.

"See there's your problem." Tyson said. "If you don't have a sales pitch no one is going to stick around." I often forget that Tyson is actually really quite smart and doing a business degree, probably because he's... well Tyson.

"Well if you have any ideas on how to get people to stick around then, please, be my guest whoever you are." Mariah stated.

"Oh sorry." I jumped in at this point. "Mariah, Emily, this is my friend Tyson from my old University. Tyson this is Emily and Mariah a couple of my friends from my year."

"And this is why you'd be a terrible host." Emily joked.

"You mean I can't just get by on my pretty face alone?" I asked.

"So Tyson do you know a lot about sales pitches?" Mariah asked ignoring me and Emily. Tyson nodded.

"Oh yeah," he replied. "I did an entire module on it in my second year and, not that I'm one to brag or anything, but I totally aced that class – top marks in all of my essays."

"Not that you're one to brag or anything." I said giving him a playful nudge in the ribs.

"Yeah well..." Tyson laughed.

"So you really think you can get at least someone not from our year to notice us?" Mariah asked.

"Piece of cake." Tyson shrugged. "Plus I have a loud enough voice that I can attract people's attention just by being here."

"That certainly is true." I cut in. "Is there anything I can do to help Mariah?"

"Perform?" she asked hopefully. "Look I know you said you were with your pal all day but he's here, you're here, we're not doing so well and we could really use your help. What do you say? Please?"

"I wouldn't bother." a monotonous voice said from behind us. I rolled my eyes knowing who would have that defeatist attitude as I turned around. Sure enough Kai was standing behind us staring contemptuously at the stall.

"And why is that?" I asked not bothering to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

"Because this was doomed to fail from the beginning." Kai stated. "No one gives a fuck about what first years have to offer unless they are a first year or they're related to one."

"And you know this for a fact?" I asked. Kai nodded.

"Even if you do something spectacular you won't get anyone interested." he stated. "You're at the bottom of the proverbial food chain – no one is going to care."

"Says you." Tyson yelled as he walked away. "Gee he's a ray of sunshine, who was that guy anyway?"

"That's Kai." I told him.

"The infamous?"

"How many other guys called Kai have I told you go here and are in my year?" I returned.

"Good point."

"What are we going to do?" Mariah groaned.

"Yeah," Emily agreed. "I hate to say it but Kai's right. No one cares about what first years have to offer because we've literally only just got here."

"It's not too late," Tyson pointed out. "the day is young and I can still get people over here by being a big mouth."

"Mariah can you get hold of Enrique and the rest of Vocal Majesty?" I asked.

"Vocal Majesty?" Tyson asked a little sceptically.

"Should be able to." Mariah replied, ignoring him. "What are you planning?"

"Give me a microphone." I told her. She handed me one and I went over to the computer Kenny had rigged up. I quickly scrolled through the backing tracks installed until I found what I was looking for – something fun, something enjoyable and something that would get people's attention. I hit play and as the music began I climbed up onto the stage and began to sing.

"Switch on the sky and the stars glow for you

Go see the world 'cause it's all so brand new

Don't close your eyes 'cause your future's ready to shine

It's just a matter of time before we learn how to fly..."

Emily beamed at me. I could see Tyson grabbing people walking past and getting them to come in our direction. I heard someone climb up onto the stage next to me and saw Mariah grinning widely. She was one for very quick choreography and I joined in as best I could while still singing (thankfully she seemed to be keeping it simple for me). Before I knew it we were joined on the stage by Rei and Lee and, a little later, Emily and Michael. Pretty soon the vast majority of the people who had said they would help out were on the stage as well.

It felt fantastic! I looked out into the crowd again and saw Tyson. He gave me a double thumbs up as he directed another group of people over. I looked down to the edge of the stage and saw that quite a substantial crowd had formed. I looked up again and this time caught Kai's eye. The expression on his face was unreadable and I had no idea what was going through his mind but, as I watched, I saw the corner of his mouth pull up slightly into a half smile. God I cannot work him out! I looked away and carried on singing.

"It's been fun but now I've got to go

Life is way to short to take it slow

But before I go and hit the road

You know I've gotta know till then when can we do this again?

When can I see you again?

When can we do this again?

I've gotta know when can I see you again?"

The song came to a close and I handed the microphone to Mariah who told the crowd that there would be a sign up sheet if they wanted to perform and they would be going till the end of the day so there was no rush at all. I jumped off the stage feeling breathless and elated. Tyson came bounding over to me.

"Dude that was amazing!" he cried. "The way everyone joined you on stage – it was like something out of a freaking teen musical." Before I had the chance to answer I felt someone jump on me from behind. I turned and saw Emily clinging on to me and laughing happily.

"Max that was amazing!" she cried. "Thank you so much!"

"I didn't do that much." I said. "Having you guys join me on stage was what made it."

"I know but just having someone to have the balls to get up there and start in the first place!" she said. I felt someone else ruffle my hair. I turned and saw Rei grinning down at me.

"Good job Maxie." he said. "You're a regular little genius."

"Thanks." I grinned and I could feel my ears heat up. Even though Rei and I were just friends he was still very attractive and knowing that he found me attractive just made his praise all the more embarrassing. There may have been a few more instances like the night I met him but with less alcohol that made it worse.

"Seriously though Max," Emily said. "thank you so much for doing that you have no idea what it means to Mariah and me."

"It's okay. I'm always happy to help out a friend if they need it." I said.

"I'm sure you are." Rei chuckled leaning in close so that only I would hear him. My face caught fire. I turned away to distract myself from the sound of his voice and the memory of him whispering sinfully dirty things into my ear as he pounded into me. As I turned I caught Kai's eye again and this time I could tell that he was pissed off. He was glaring in mine and Rei's direction but I could tell that the death stare was meant for Rei. He locked eyes with me and, even though I professed to be over him, the intensity of his stare still made me knees a little weak. He turned and stalked away into the crowd and I turned back to my friends shaking off whatever I had felt – I did not need that kind of drama right now.

 **Chapter title lyrics and both sections of inside song lyrics taken from 'When Can I See You Again' by Owl City**


	7. To Capture You And Make You Spellbound

**So I had to get Max performing with the All Stars in here somewhere because it's funny and also just addressing Steve's sudden disappearance in the third season. There's also a bit of smut thrown in there too :p hope you enjoy :D**

During his entire stay with me at BBA Hiro was adamant that Tyson was not going to set foot in his classroom while he was teaching. Tyson had played the brother card at every attempt but Hiro was been firm. It was probably a good thing. While Tyson wouldn't intentionally be disruptive he did have the attention span of a five year old and got very distracted very easily. So while I was in class he spent most of his time in my room, playing video games.

It wasn't until the day before he was due to leave that Hiro relented. Tyson had given him the puppy dog eyes and pleaded that this was his last chance to see both his brother and his best friend in action. Impressive tactic and it seemed to work as Hiro said that as long as Tyson sat where he could keep an eye on him (i.e. at the front) and didn't say anything while he was teaching then he would allow it.

"Knew I'd wear him down eventually." Tyson laughed as the two of us made our way down to the front of the auditorium.

"Is that how you got Hillary to go out with you?" I asked but Tyson didn't seem to be listening.

"So you perform in front of your whole class on a regular basis?" he asked. I nodded.

"At the end of the year we have to perform in front of the whole school as our exam, although I'm not actually performing today." I told him.

"That must be really nerve wrecking; up there on your own in front of the entire school." he said. Thanks Tyson, I hadn't thought of it like that before. He stopped suddenly. "Hang on, what do you mean you're not performing today?"

"We don't perform every single lesson." I said. "They'd be, like, five hours long otherwise."

"Ah man," Tyson whined. "I was really looking forward to watching you do your stuff."

"Sorry man." I shrugged as we made our way down to the front row. After Enrique and Rei in my first week I had learnt not to sit in the front row anymore but Hiro had explicitly said that he wanted Tyson where he could see him so the front it was. I'd just have to hope 'feel up someone in the front row' was not part of the programme today. We were just settling into our seats when Emily ran over to us.

"Max!" she cried. "I'm so glad I caught you, I need your help."

"What's up?" I asked.

"Me and the rest of The All Stars are supposed to perform this afternoon but Steve's sick and the choreography won't work with only four of us." she said. "Will you be our fifth?"

"Are you sure about this?" I asked sceptically. I wasn't the fastest learner when it came to choreography and there was not a lot of time for me to learn it in.

"No it's fine," she said. "the choreography isn't that hard, I can go through it with you now. Please I really need your help."

"Do it Maxie!" Tyson cried. "Emily needs help and I get to see you perform."

"Okay, I'll do it." I said. Emily squealed and threw her arms around me while Tyson whooped delightedly beside me.

"You," Emily said beaming. "are an absolute life saver and I love you."

"Don't let Michael hear you say that." I laughed. She waved me off.

"He knows he's third on the list," she said. Third? Poor Michael. "Now let's go – we don't have much time."

"Knock 'em dead you guys." Tyson called after us as Emily dragged me backstage.

* * *

I was really nervous as I stood with Emily, Michael, Eddie and a scary looking beefcake (that Emily assured me was a big softie at heart) named Rick. It felt silly, being that nervous but I have never performed as part of a group before. I really didn't want to balls this up for the rest of them. I adjusted my head-mic as Eddie clapped me on the shoulder.

"Nervous Max?" he asked, grinning. Apparently it was more obvious that I had thought.

"A little." I admitted. "Just never performed as part of a group before."

"You'll be fine." Eddie grinned.

"Hey if Blondie's going to have a shit-fit we can do this without him." Rick snapped.

"Lay off, Rick," Michael said. "he's doing us a favour."

"I'll be fine guys." I stated. "I won't let you down."

"Aright," Emily said as the lights out on stage went out. "let's just do our best and have fun out there." Once the stage was dark we crept out of the wings and took our places. The lights went up and the music started.

"You cannot run and you cannot hide

Yeah, you've gotta face it baby

Things go bump in the night

Wherever you run and wherever you hide

Yeah, you gotta face it baby

Things go bump, bump, bump in the night."

I could hear rather than see Tyson cheering me on in the front row. It was really encouraging as, despite what I had said, I was really nervous. Luckily Emily hadn't exaggerated; the choreography wasn't very difficult and I didn't have much to sing solo but I made sure I was concentrating the entire time.

In the final move of the routing I hit the floor slightly harder than I intended to but thankfully it wasn't noticeable to anyone but me. Once we were done, I went and sat in one of the dressing rooms to inspect the damage. I had hit my knee pretty badly and it was already beginning to bruise but no lasting damage to worry about.

I leaned back in the chair, enjoying the quiet. I was pretty tired from performing and Tyson snores like a freight train so I hadn't been getting a lot of sleep. In the dressing room it was quiet though. I could hear the faint sounds of the group currently on stage but that was all. I leaned back in the chair, stretching my arms over the back and letting my hands dangle behind me, and closed my eyes. No one would miss me if I had a quick nap.

I could feel myself beginning to dose off when, all of a sudden, I felt something cold around one of my wrists I heard it snap shut and before I could do anything something cold snapped closed around the other. I tried to move my hands but I was stuck. I heard the click of metal against vinyl and I realised I was handcuffed to the chair. I tried tugging again but to no avail. I heard a soft chuckle behind me.

"You can do that as much as you want," Rei said as he came into view. "those aren't the cheap shit you get in costume shops, those are the real thing."

"What the hell are you doing Rei?" I asked. That much was kind of obvious but his timing was really inconvenient. He knelt down in front of me and slipped a hand under my t-shirt. I stiffened as his skilled fingertips traced lazy patterns along my stomach. I'd forgotten how good he was with his hands.

"Having some fun." he smirked as I arched up into his touch. "You wanna have some fun with me?" He pushed up my t-shirt with his free hand and began planting soft kisses along the waistband of my shorts. I gasped as he nipped my hipbone.

"We... we'll get caught." I protested. I knew that if I told him to stop then he would – it wasn't the first time Rei had done something like this but it was usually planned and when either of our room-mates was out. I didn't really want him to stop though. Adrenaline from performing and the thrill of potentially getting caught made any protest I might have had die in my throat. Rei popped open the button on my shorts.

"Don't worry I'll make it quick, you just have to keep quiet." he smirked before taking the zip between his teeth and slowly dragging it down. The wicked gleam in his eye said that he wasn't going to make that an easy task for me.

I sank my teeth into my bottom lip as he reached into my boxers and pulled my cock out. He ran his tongue up the underside, making me fully hard and I sucked in as much air into my lungs as I could. If I kept my teeth embedded in my lips then I might be able to keep myself quiet but when Rei's tongue swirled around the head my resole cracked and a soft groan sounded in the back of my throat.

I made the mistake of looking down and saw Rei smirking at me, knowing he had me exactly where he wanted me. He winked at me before engulfing my cock with his mouth. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, groaning again. My teeth were still firmly planted in my lip so that I didn't just scream out his name. I felt him swallow around me and I began to lose it. I thrust my hips up sightly but he pushed them back down onto the chair. I heard him chuckle softly and the sound sent tremors of ecstasy coursing through me.

Sweat was prickling on my neck and I knew I was getting close. Tension coiled in my stomach and, as Rei gave me anther particularly hard suck, I came. It may have been the idea of getting caught, that anyone could walk in on us, because my orgasm hit me like an eighteen-wheeler. I was vaguely aware of Rei swallowing my cum and re-dressing me before he sat up so he was eye level with me, winding his fingers through my hair before pulling me into a searing kiss. I moaned into his mouth, tasting myself on his tongue, but it was over before it had really begun. He pulled back and I looked down to see the key to the handcuffs hanging on a chain around my neck. I stared up at him.

"Wha..." I just about managed through the post orgasmic fog.

"That was fun," Rei snickered. "and this will be just as much fun."

"You're not serious?" I asked when I realised what was happening. Rei smiled innocently at me.

"Don't worry, if no one has found you by lunch I'll come and let you out." he said.

"It's a good thing my hands are cuffed right now because I might strangle you." I muttered darkly under my breath. Rein just laughed again.

"It's a shame I don't have something fun I can leave you with but I promise I'll make it up to you when I get back." he said.

"I really hate you sometimes." I said, resigning myself to the fact that I was stuck there for the foreseeable future. Rei leaned over and kissed me passionately.

"Love you too Maxie." he grinned. He went over to the door and opened it. There must have been some kind of divine providence that I had pissed off or I had committed mass genocide in a previous life because Tyson and Kai were on the other side. Tyson looked confused and Kai looked like he was out for blood. Rei shot me a slick grin and made a point of whipping his mouth (as if my flushed, sweaty face wasn't enough of an indication of what we had just been doing) before leaving.

I looked down at my lap. I could feel Kai's gaze burning into me and I couldn't look him in the eye. I heard footsteps come towards me and Kai's hand grabbed the key around my neck and pulled. It stung as the chain pulled taught before snapping. I looked up at him, he glared down at me like he was hoping I would burst into flames – I was hoping I would burst into flames. There was nothing I could say in this instance that would make things any better so I looked away, my face burning with shame. Kai stalking away, stopping only to deposit the key into the hand of a very confused Tyson before leaving. Neither Tyson on I moved until we were sure that he had gone before Tyson turned to stare at me.

"What kind of school did you come to?"

 **Chapter title and inside song lyrics are from 'Things That Go Bump In The Night' by Allstars (I'm hilarious and terrible). Allstars were a British band around in the early 2000s. They had one song... this was it**


	8. I'm Not Here For Your Entertainment

**So here is a nice little bit of random smut to start off your weekend :p Max you really need to learn to say 'no' once in a while haha hope you all enjoy :D**

After Tyson left and the embarrassment that was Kai walking in on me handcuffed to a chair, obviously having gotten frisky with a guy he hates, I decided to try and keep my head down and keep myself to myself for a little while. The idea was to throw myself into school work and not get bogged down with other distractions. That meant no thinking about Kai, no hooking up with Rei, no thinking about Kai's opinion on my hooking up with Rei. I needed to concentrate as classes were starting to get harder and the last thing I wanted to do was fall behind because I couldn't keep my stupid hormones in check.

But, like all good plans, it seemed that everything and everyone was dead set against me not doing that. Every week there seemed to be some party or another that Emily and Mariah would drag me to or it would be so loud I was unable to concentrate on my work. I also kept running into Kai whenever I was looking for somewhere quiet to study. No matter if I tried to duck behind another aisle in the library or to dart into another classroom he would always see me and always know that I was avoiding him. Childish, yes, but I wasn't ready to face another derogatory lecture from him even though he had no say in what I did with my life.

Musical Theory was my godsend at that moment. I didn't have too worry about Kai or Rei as neither of them were in my class. I didn't have to worry about people badgering me into partying as everyone in the class was kind of bookish. I could just focus on the work and nothing else. The only person who was in my class that I saw on a regular basis was Tala, Kai's red-headed friend, who sort of kept himself to himself. When I went into class that day, though, I was running a little late and the only available seat left was next to him.

"Is it okay if I sit here?" I asked him. The only interaction I had had with him was when he and Kai had been arguing about me in Russian and he had told me to stay away from Kai at the beginning of the year. Aside from a few sideways glares from him we hadn't really spoken to each other since. I was surprised when he shrugged.

"Sure thing." he replied. "Not many other options for you really."

"No," I said as I sat down. "I got really distracted and lost track of time." He said nothing and turned his attention back to Professor Topper at the front of the class. I hastily pulled out my notebook as he began his lecture.

"Okay settle down." he said and the chatter in the room died quickly. "Now you've all learnt the basics of musical theory and today you're going to put that theory to the test. Working in pairs with the person sitting next to you, I'll be giving each pair a piece of music to analyse. You'll have till the end of class then I'll mark them and see how much progress you've made. After that we'll re-evaluate whether you need more or less tutoring." Well that sounds kind of ominous. Does this count towards our final grade?

"Is this like a proper exam?" a girl sitting behind me asked. Professor Topper shook his head.

"It's more like a pop-quiz to see how much you've been paying attention so far." he said. "Although the use of notes is not permitted.

"Urgh," Tala groaned as Professor Topper began handing round scores of music. "I know this is hardly going to be a challenge but springing a test on us like this is kind of a dick move."

"It does seem to be the way they do things around here." I chuckled.

"Yeah," Tala agreed. "the teachers do seem to thrive on dick moves."

"Them and everyone else." I replied. Tala raised an eyebrow at me.

"That sounds like there's a story behind that." he said.

"It's nothing." I said waving him off. "Just the first night I was here – a tray of clear shots and all of them turning out to be Grappa." Tala snorted.

"Please; have you ever tried pure Russian Black Vodka?"

"Once," I laughed. "and it wasn't an experience I'd care to repeat." Kai had stolen some of his grandfather's on his sixteenth birthday and the two of us had gotten very trashed, very quickly. The hangover the next day had been awful, only made worse by the bollocking I had gotten from my parents for spending the night at Kai's. The shirtless photos I had received from Kai while I was grounded made up for me not being able to see him outside of school though.

"There you go boys." Professor Topper said dumping an innocuous musical score on the desk in front of us. "Enjoy."

I looked over the score. Tala was right – this wasn't going to be a challenge at all. The likelihood is we both could have easily done it separately but doing it together took us no time at all. Once we had finished I was double checking everything one finally time as we still had about twenty minutes left till the end of class.

"Hey, "Tala said once I had finished. "I'm sorry about the beginning of term. I was kind of a dick just assuming that you were going to cause Kai trouble or mess him around."

"Don't worry about it." I told him. "You were just looking out for your friend, I can totally understand that."

"Not like it did much though." he stated. "Kai's his own worst enemy when it comes to you."

"What do you mean?"

"I probably shouldn't really be saying this to you, of all people, but Kai's crazy about you." he said.

"What?"

"Kai's still absolutely crazy about you." Tala said again, spelling it out for me so I'd understand him.

"I..." I couldn't get my head around it. Kai was still in to me. Sure him telling me to stay away from Rei and insisting I can translate love songs into languages he can understand suggested that maybe there was something there but I had just thought he was trying to provoke me into a confession of my own so he could shoot me down again. I mean he was the one who had stopped contacting me when I moved. "I don't know what to do with that." Tala just shrugged.

"Whatever you want to do with it." he said. "Just, please don't lead him on if it's not something you want to pursue okay?"

"Sure." I replied not knowing what else to say. My heart was fluttering in my chest like a butterfly trapped under glass and my head was spinning and suddenly I was right back to where I was three years ago.

* * *

It was a good thing Tala had told me about Kai once we had finished filling out Professor Topper's pop quiz as I was having real trouble focusing on anything else. I just about made it to the end of the lesson and made my way to my next class although I wasn't paying any attention to where I was going and ended up walking into quite a few people. I finally got myself to class and was still not paying attention when I plonked myself down in an empty chair. Only when Dr Best started the lecture did I glance at my neighbour and I wanted the ground to open up and end my miserable existence.

Kai caught my eye and smirked at me I blushed and turned to the front of the class, trying to concentrate on Dr Best's lecture. I remember when we were together that smirk never meant anything good (well it did – it meant orgasms and handcuffs – but right now, in class, it certainly wasn't going to mean anything good). Focus on the lecture and maybe he'll take the hint. Or so I hoped until a small, folded piece of paper landed on my notebook. I unfolded it and recognised Kai's handwriting immediately.

'Didn't realise you were such an exhibitionist.' it read. My face felt like it was on fire. This was the first thing he had said to me since the incident with Rei and the handcuffs and I could practically feel him smirking next to me. Nope, I am not rising to this. I'm just going to ignore him. If he really wants to talk about this he can do so after class. Another note landed in front of me. I was torn; look at it and play along with his little game or ignore him and probably suffer the consequences later. I opened the note, my curiosity getting the better of me.

'So you want to play it that way?' it read. I looked back to the front of class. No this is not happening right now. I jumped out of my skin as I felt Kai's hand on my thigh. I bit down on my lips to stop myself from squeaking. My hand gripped my pen tighter as his hand began to trail up the inside f my thigh. Still staring at the front of the room I reached down with my free hand and tried to move his hand away but before I could he reached up and grabbed my cock through my jeans.

My entire body jolted as he began to slowly rub my cock through my clothes. Oh god! I was both aroused and mortified at the same time. If anyone saw us then I didn't know what I'd do (probably get some kind of reputation as the biggest slut in first year, which I would resent as it wasn't totally true) but at the same time Kai knew exactly how to make me completely weak at the knees and as if my spine was made of jelly.

I knew I should push his hand away but I couldn't bring myself to – I mean it was Kai. The first guy I had been in love with, the guy I'd lost my virginity to and, if I was really honest with myself, the guy I still wasn't over even after all this time... not really. Just having his hands on me and what Tala had told me earlier was really clouding my judgement and I couldn't quite focus on anything that wasn't his hand and the fact that I was already half hard.

The plastic casing on my Biro cracked I was gripping the pen so tightly as Kai sped up his movements. I was so lost in the sensation that I wanted him to finished what he had started but on the other hand I really didn't want to blow my load in my boxers like a fifteen year old. I had my eyes firmly fixed on the board in front of me; if I looked at Kai I knew I would lose it. My jeans were painfully tight now but the friction of his hand against them was amazing. Oh god this was going to end so badly! Why did he have to start this in class, of all places? What if one of us got asked a question?

"Who are considered, by some, to be the most influential composers of the 21st Century? Mr Tate?" Dr Best asked. I knew the answer but I couldn't get my voice to cooperate and answer the question.

"Nnnngh..." was all that came out of my mouth. Dr Best raised an eyebrow at me before turning to Kai.

"Mr Hiwatari would you please be so kind and stop sexually harassing Mr Tate under the table long enough for him to answer the question." he stated.

The entire class turned round to stare at me and Kai. I had never thought about this before but I must have been one hell of a bastard in a previous life or maybe I had been enough of a jerk in this one at some point to warrant this kind of karmic retribution. I could practically feel my face glowing with embarrassment because it was only then that Kai finally withdrew his hand.

"Sure." he said. I could tell he was smirking but I didn't want to look at him to find out.

"Well Mr Tate," Dr Best said, folding his arms over his chest. "we would like an answer or do you need me to repeat the question?"

"John Williams, James Horner and Hans Zimmer." I said, embarrassingly out of breath.

"Good." Dr Best said and I thought the torture was over. It wasn't. "Next time please keep your hands and penises to yourselves while you're in class. Moving on..."

He continued with his lecture and the rest of the class turned their attention back to the front. I exhaled heavily, hoping that my heart would return to its normal pace and I could breath properly again. I was just about calm when Kai leant over to whisper in my ear and my heart leapt back into my throat again.

"Maybe next time I'll get to finish you off before we get interrupted." he chuckled softly. I blushed fiercely before slamming my face into the desk with an audible thunk.

 **Chapter title lyrics taken from 'U + Ur Hand' by P!nk**


	9. Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off

**Everyone has off days... especially when you get caught being wanked off by your ex in class and it's hella awkward. Hope you enjoy the fallout of the last chapter :D**

"I was left to my own devices

Many days fell away with nothing to show

And the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love

Great clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above"

Shit! Hit a bum note. I winced to myself but carried on. I had been called on by Hiro to perform for this lesson about a week ago and I had forgotten about it until Mariah had reminded me last night. Now here I was, on stage, singing a song I had only properly started learning seven hours ago. I had had very little sleep and more energy drinks than I perhaps should have done. This could not be going any worse! The only way it could be any worse would be if Hiro had called on me in that first class when I was really hungover.

After Kai's little stunt in Dr Best's class I had been getting odd looks from people in the corridors. I had tried my best to ignore them – I was used to stares from being the scholarship student but they stopped about mid December, after the hype had worn off. Now the stares seemed to be accompanied with whispers. I caught Kai's eye in the auditorium and my stomach lurched horribly but I fought it down and carried on.

"But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

And if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like you've been here before?

How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

How am I gonna be an optimist about this?"

Fuck! Another bum note and I'm pretty sure I missed the timing there as I was struggling to keep up with the music and found myself stumbling over my words. So much had happened in the last couple of weeks and I had been letting it all get to me. I was all over the place and I was freaking out because I was so all over the place. This wasn't like me! I needed to get my head back in the game.

After much longer than a three minute song should last the torture was over. Or so I thought. Realistically I knew that after a performance like that Hiro was going to have something to say about it. The stage lights went down and the auditorium lights came back up. I couldn't look at Hiro. I couldn't look at anyone so I just stared at the edge of the stage and waited for the explosion to come.

"Well that was definitely something." Hiro said after the silence had stretched on for too long. That wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be but I very much doubted that he would let me off the hook that easily. "Do you have anything you would like to add to that?" he asked.

"I can do better." I said, thanking my lucky stars that my voice didn't catch.

"You're damn right you can." Hiro said. "I'll give you that you managed to get the whole way through the song but my lenience stops there. You might be able to get away with a shoddy performance like that at a backwater Community College but this is the big leagues now kid. You work your arse off to get a scholarship here then you ride on that success as if it will take you through to your second year. Did you just not bother preparing for today's class?"

"I... I sort of forgot." I stammered. I figured it was just going to be better for me if I was honest.

"You forgot?" Hiro asked sceptically. So maybe it wouldn't be. "Now, when you're a professional performer and doing this to a different audience every night, do you think that excuse if going to fly."

"No." I replied.

"Then don't use it in my class!" Hiro said. "You need to shape up and step up your game. You can't keep riding on one success forever; performers who do that die quickly. You can do better than this – I know you can – so why are you settling for second best?"

"I..." I had no answer. I couldn't tell him why I had been all over the place; maybe if it had been just the two of us, in private, but not here in front of the whole class.

"I'll tell you why," he said when I didn't answer. "because you're either too lazy or too much of a coward to push yourself forward. You'd better work out which one it is and sort it out otherwise you will not make it to your second year."

"Okay." I swallowed the lump in my throat, determined not to break down at the first sign on criticism.

"So I'm going to give you a chance to prove to me that you really want this and really want to be here." he said. I finally felt brave enough to look at him. "By the end of the week I want a polished performance – on your own or with a group, I don't care – that shows me you're serious about this. If I don't see that I will fail you for you lack-lustre performance. Now sit down."

I nodded and practically ran off the stage. I slipped into the nearest available seat and tried not to let Hiro's words get to me. I couldn't help it though – he was right. I knew I could do better than that – that might well have been the worst performance I had ever given. My heart was pounding in my ears and I could feel myself shaking. My eyes stung but I was determined that I wouldn't cry – I would feel even more pathetic than I already did. I sat and waited for the end of class, my spirits sinking lower and lower with every passing second.

* * *

Once the class was over I was the last to move. Partially I was waiting to see if Hiro had anything else to add – he didn't – and partially because I didn't have the energy to get up yet. I knew there wasn't a class after ours so I planned to stay there until I felt like moving. A hand slipped into mine and I looked up to see Mariah. She gave my hand a squeeze and I rested my head on her shoulder.

"You okay?" she asked.

"No." I replied. "I can't believe I tanked so hard."

"Everyone has off days Max." she said.

"I guess."

"Are you bummed because of what Hiro said?" she said.

"Wouldn't you be?" I replied. She thought about that for a moment.

"Yeah but then I'd be really determined to prove him wrong." she said.

"I want to prove him wrong," I said. "I really do but I'm in such a funk at the moment I can't think straight." I sighed. Mariah leaned her head against mine.

"Is it still Kai?" she asked. I exhaled loudly.

"It's sort of everything really." I told her. Yes, Kai was a big part of that everything but he wasn't the only thing that had me all over the place. We hadn't spoken since he had tried to jerk me off in Dr Best's class and I don't know if that was making the whole situation worse or if I even wanted to talk to him about it.

"And Hiro's given you till the end of the week to get something down?" she asked. I nodded. "Well Lee, the rest of the White Tigers and I are performing on Friday if you want to join us? It might take some of the pressure off?"

"Would it be too much trouble?" I asked. The thought of performing with other people was a huge relief – knowing that I'd have my friends backing me up made me feel like I could actually pull this off.

"Don't be silly, I wouldn't have asked if it was." Mariah said. "I'll just need to do a few bits and pieces with the choreography and now I have an excuse not to sing with Kevin." I chuckled and sat up to face her.

"Thank you so much Mariah, I really appreciate this." I said.

"Maxie you're one of my best friends," she told me. "I'm not going to let you go through this on your own." She took my hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. "Now you go get some sleep – god knows you need it – and I'll come and wake you up in a couple of hours then we can get started. Okay?"

"Okay." I replied. Sleep sounded like a very good plan, especially as I only hand four days to get this ready.

Turns out Mariah, as a teacher, is very much like a drill sergeant. Most of our rehearsals, at some point, had me on the floor struggling for breath and her yelling at me to 'get back on my feet and do it better'. Every time I would grit my teeth, push past the pain in my lungs and carry on. It took me two days worth of rehearsals to learn and polish the routine and by the time we ran through the routine with Lee, Rei, Kevin and Gary it was ingrained in my brain. I was eating, sleeping and breathing this dance but I was still really nervous about Friday.

Despite working my hardest, despite the constant dull ache in my quads and despite the fact that I still had classes on top of all of this there was still a part of me that thought I was going to tank it.

"Max you're going to be fine." Lee told me as we stood in the wings of the stage waiting to go on.

"You think so?" I asked.

"You survived four days of my sister constantly yelling at you, Rei trying to feel you up all the time, Gary asking you daft questions and Kevin... being Kevin. You've proved that you can do this; you know this dance and this song inside out. You can do this." he said.

"Thanks Lee." I said. I felt a hand on my hip and turned to see Rei standing behind me.

"Hey you," he purred. "how're you doing?"

"Not too bad." I replied. "Just nervous."

"You'll be great." he said giving my hip a small squeeze. "Then we can do something fun to celebrate afterwards." he added leaning down to whisper in my ear. My face flushed and he chuckled. Lee rolled his eyes.

"You have no shame."

"You say that like this is news." Rei grinned. I rolled my eyes too (although I was feeling less nervous now I'd give him that). Mariah appeared with Gary and Kevin.

"You guys ready?" she asked.

"As I'll ever be." I replied.

"Good, let's go." she said as the stage lights went down.

The music started and we all bounded onto the stage. I thought as long as I could keep my breath to hold the song right till the end then I would be okay. I was already beginning to run out of breath by the first chorus – even though I'd been doing it all week. Mariah's choreography was insane but I kept up. I had to. I caught Hiro's eye in the front row and held it, defiantly, putting more power into my voice as I stared him down.

"People are raising their expectations

Go on and feed them this is your moment

No hesitations

Today's your day; I feel it

You pave the way; believe it

If you get down get up (oh, oh)

When you get down get up (eh, eh)

Tsamina mina zangallewa

This time for Africa"

Every time I caught Hiro's eye I couldn't tell what he was thinking. I wanted so desperately to know but then, as I passed the microphone to Mariah, I had this weird crystallising moment of clarity, I realised I didn't care what Hiro thought. Or what Kai thought, or what anyone thought. I was doing my best and that was all that I could do. Plus, even though my legs ached and my lungs burned, I was having so much fun. Mariah threw the microphone back to me. I caught it and carried on singing.

"Tsamina mina eh eh

Waka waka eh eh

Tsamina mina zangalewa

This time for Africa

Django eh eh

Django eh eh

Tsamina mina zangalewa

Anawa aa aa"

The music faded. I was panting like I'd just sprinted across London and sweat was pouring down my neck but I had done it. I had fucking done it. The stage lights went down and the auditorium lights went up. This time I was confident enough to look at Hiro – still couldn't tell what he was thinking though.

"Now that's more of the standard I want to see from you, Tate." he said. I sighed with relief. "Wong, you are a very good teacher – that was a well polished performance, especially considering that you added Tate in at the last minute. You have a good group here and you all stand to do really well. Tate you have proved that you are capable of defying expectations and I do not want to see you become lacks again. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes." I panted.

"Good. You have the all energy and stamina of a puppy on Speed; use it." he added. I nodded. Coming from him I'd take that as a compliment.

 **Chapter title taken from 'Waka Waka (This Time For Afria)' by Shakira**

 **First set of inside lyrics taken from 'Pompeii' by** **Bastille**

 **Second set of inside lyrics taken from 'Waka Waka (This Time For Afria)' by Shakira**


	10. Then We Should All Burn Together

**Sweet relief for a weekend off :D my plan is to do the exact same thing as Kenny - Hobbit movie marathon as I recently finished the book :3 anyway hope you enjoy**

I need a better alarm on my phone (or I need to stop setting alarms for fourteen minute naps in the library but that's neither here nor there). I only had about fifteen minutes before I had to be in class and I needed to drop off the books I had been reading so I didn't have to carry them around all afternoon. (I'm just lazy like that.) I could also do with a change of shirt, after spilling energy drink down it and I really didn't fancy sitting in a sticky t-shirt all afternoon.

The door was locked when I arrived so, assuming Kenny was out, I began tugging my shirt off as I unlocked the door. It wasn't until I had pulled the shirt over my head that I realised the door had been locked for a reason. Kenny was sitting with his back to the door, his laptop open, furiously jacking off. I cast a quick glance to the screen and, to my surprise, there was no porn just Dizzy's program. I was frozen. He didn't seem to know I was here and with my shirt off I looked like I was here to join the party. Neither Kenny nor Dizzy had noticed I was there so I dumped my t-shirt, grabbed the nearest one I could find (hoping it was clean or at least semi-clean) and left.

I locked the door and pulled my shirt on, it smelt clean which was something, and slung my backpack onto my shoulder. Bugger! I hadn't dropped off my books but after what I had just seen I was quite happy to give my shoulders a workout. I turned to make my way back over to the campus for Hiro's lesson when the door of Mariah and Emily's room opened and Kevin landed on the floor in front of me.

"And stay out!" Mariah shouted before slamming the door. I stood there staring at Kevin as he got to his feet and straightened himself up, mumbling under his breath.

"You okay Kev?" I asked.

"You know something Max?" he replied. "When I make a surprise lunch for the girl I love and her room-mate a simple thank you is all I want, none of this 'how did you get into my room' business. You know?"

"Can't say I do, Kev, sorry." I said.

"Oh yeah," Kevin said smacking his palm to his forehead. "you like guys." Like that is the issue here!

"Yeah..." I replied. "Anyway I really have to get to class... good talk though." I continued on my way, shaking my head to myself. I really hope that this onslaught of weirdness is not going to set the tone for the afternoon...

* * *

Unfortunately it did. That afternoon, in class, Hiro announced that we were going to be doing group projects the following week. Not inherently bad no but when he also announced that he was going to be the one picking the groups I was certainly feeling apprehensive. It was getting closer and closer to the end of the list and I still hadn't heard my name called out. I was starting to get very edgy.

"Hiwatari, Kon," Hiro called out and I couldn't help snorting softly. Kai and Rei working together was going to be a recipe for disaster. I pitied the poor fucker stuck dealing with them. "and Tate."

Of course. Of fucking course. I get stuck with my ex and the last guy I slept with – who already hated each other before I came back on to the scene – working on a project for class where we all had to get along and tolerate each others presence for a week's worth of rehearsals. There was no way that all three of us were going to get out of this alive.

Once Hiro had finished talking I went over to the edge of the stage to meet him, making sure I didn't catch Rei or Kai's eye. I waited until Hiro noticed me – what I was going to say was likely to piss him off and I didn't want to make things worse. Eventually he noticed me standing behind him.

"Tate?" he said, sounding surprised. "Everything alright?"

"Yeah." I said rubbing the back of my neck. "I was just wondering..."

"No." he stated not even giving me a chance to finish. Probably should have just come out with it right off the mark rather than hedging around the subject.

"I can't work with Kai and Rei." I told him. "Not together, they'll kill each other or me!"

"You say that like that wasn't the reason I put you with them." Hiro said. Okay I can see his thinking but I still wasn't sure why that had to be me. Unless he wanted either one of them or both of them to kill me.

"But..."

"You came over her because you want something right? Spit it out." he said.

"I'm sorry, I really can't work with them." I said.

"My decision is final." he stated. No. No, no, no, no, no! This cannot be the fate I am doomed to for a week.

"But..." I tried again.

"Look this isn't the Second World War, Tate," he said. "You can't conscientiously object the assignment. Now there is competency within you somewhere and a vague degree of charm; use it and get those two working together. If you can accomplish that then whatever you do for the rest of this year you will have a marginal degree of my respect for that at least."

"Thank you?" I think there was a compliment in there somewhere. Hiro grabbed his bag and clapped me on the shoulder.

"Have fun." he said and left me standing by the front of the stage. I turned to face the auditorium. Kai was still sitting, his arms folded and looking ready to murder, and Rei was strolling up to join me looking way too gleeful about this.

"You ready to have some fun?" he purred running his fingertips down my chest. I looked over at Kai and I could practically see the steam coming out of his ears.

"Define what part of this is going to be fun." I said taking hold of his hand and removing it from my chest. No. None of this nonsense.

* * *

"...Because you have no taste in music!" Rei yelled.

"And you're saying you do?" Kai snapped.

"More than you do!" Rei replied.

I groaned to myself as this carried on over my head. Three days worth of rehearsals and we still hadn't gotten further than this: Kai and Rei arguing about what we should be doing, which always ends up getting personal, and us not actually getting anything done. I had tried to speak up and maintain some kind of order but they were both much louder than I was. It was beginning to get ridiculous – we were running out of time to actually get something properly prepared and whatever miracle Hiro was expecting me to pull out of my arse to make these two get along, I didn't know what it was. The argument was still going on above me and I rubbed my temples to alleviate the oncoming headache.

"Will you two shut the fuck up!" I though to myself. Both Kai and Rei fell silent. I looked up and they were both staring at me looking shocked. Oh wait, did I say that out loud just now? Judging by the looks on both their faces I think I had. Oh well I've got their attention – might as well carry on. "This isn't getting us anywhere."

"Then what do you suggest?" Kai asked.

"Yeah," Rei added. "as fun as I usually find arguing with this twazzock it's starting to get old."

"I'd call you a cunt, Kon, but you lack the depth and warmth," Kai shot back.

"So I'm open to any suggestion right about now," Rei stated ignoring Kai completely. Shit, I hadn't thought this far ahead, I thought they'd just carry on arguing.

"Well we clearly all have really different strengths, right?" I was heading my bets with this one but by some miracle I had managed to get them to stop arguing, if I kept talking long enough we might actually get somewhere with this. "So we're not likely to find something that we're all equally good at."

"Where are you going with this Max?" Kai asked.

"Well if we can't agree on something we're all equally good at so why don't we try and find something we're all equally bad at." I said.

"Like a joint weakness we can work on?" Rei asked as he thought about my suggestion. "That's a really great idea."

"That sounds like something we could feasibly pull off." Kai added.

"Okay," I said, internally heaving a sigh of relief, that could have easily backfired on me so hard. "so now we just have to find something. I mean I know I personally suck at anything that involves rapping, heavy metal or alternative indie acoustic."

"To be honest I'm kind of the same." Rei said. "Just substitute rapping for anything to do with opera."

"So that gives us a couple of options." I said. "Kai?"

"Rap, pop, dance, musicals or indie acoustic." he replied with a look on his face that said 'if you make me rap, dance, or sing from a musical I will end your life'. Point duly noted.

"So I'm sure we can find a decent indie acoustic song that we can all agree on." I said.

"Agree on?" Rei asked sceptically.

"Decent indie acoustic?" Kai added. I groaned. Three steps forward, two steps back. At that moment the door to the rehearsal room opened and Kenny appeared looking excited.

"You okay Chief?" Rei asked as Kenny bounced up and down, unable to contain his excitement.

"I've managed to rig up the projector in the auditorium for a Hobbit movie marathon tonight if you guys are interested at all?" he said.

"Think I'm going to pass on this one Chief." Rei stated.

"Same." I said.

"Yeah," Kai agreed. "the last thing I need today is to listen to Ed Sheeran's whining, nasally, out of tune..." He stopped mid-sentence, hit by a sudden idea.

"Wait..." I said, hit by the same idea. "Kenny you're a genius!"

"What did I do?" he asked. I wasn't paying attention and turned to Kai.

"Do you still have your acoustic guitar?" I asked him.

"Sure." he said shrugging.

"What's going on?" Rei asked looking confused.

"Give me ten minutes and I'll be back with a bunch of sheet music." I told him. "We have a plan."

* * *

"Oh misty eye of the mountain bellow

Keep careful watch of my brother's souls

And should the sky be filled with fire and smoke

Keep watching over Durin's sons"

Okay this may have been a good idea when we first decided to perform a song that encompasses a joint weakness we all shared. Now, now that we were actually doing it, it seemed like the worst idea in the world. Like, seriously, why the hell did I think this was a good idea and why did the others roll with it? Oh shit! Having said that the three part harmony we managed to write up and Kai's acoustic guitar going along with it were pretty cool. Maybe I needed to have more confidence. It can't be all bad. I mean I actually managed to get Kai and Rei to get along long enough to actually work together. I must admit we sounded pretty bad-ass as we went into the bridge of the song.

"And if the night is burning I will cover my eyes

For if the dark returns then my brothers will die

And as the sky is falling down it crashed into this lonely town

And with that shadow upon the ground I hear my people screaming out

I see fire"

The song came to a close and I felt like I could finally relax. This had been such a gamble and I really hope it paid off. The stage lights went down and the auditorium lights came back on. I felt just as nervous as I did after my shit performance as few weeks ago. Hiro finally looked at the three of us.

"So what made you chose this song?" he asked. I shrugged.

"We couldn't decide on something that we were all equally good at so we rolled with something we were all equally bad at." I said.

"And that's why I put the three of you together." he said. "See you three could be a great trio and produce more pieces like this if you could just get your fucking egos in check and sort out whatever pre-teen bollocks is going on between you."

That felt like a slap in the face with a cold, wet flannel. I mean the praise was great – especially as we seemed to do a relatively decent job, all things considered. I'd just never really thought of myself as someone with an ego before. As I went to find a seat in the auditorium I saw there was an available seat next to Kai. I went and sat next to him. He looked a little surprised but actually gave me a small smile and my heart fluttered. I'd missed that smile so much, more than I was really willing to admit.

"Thanks for giving Kon and me the kick up the arse we needed and actually get us to do something." he whispered as Hiro carried on with the lesson.

"Thanks for going with it." I whispered back. He placed his hand on top of mine and gave it a small squeeze. I smiled back up at him and it felt like the first genuine moment we had shared all year. Maybe there was hope for us...

 **Chapter title lyrics and inside lyrics taken from 'I See Fire' by Ed Sheeran**


	11. Always Fighting What We're Feeling

**So were getting to the good bit now :p hope you all enjoy :D**

I had thrown myself so hard into my work recently I had sort of lost track of what day it was and before I knew it I was walking out of the library into the middle of a heavy April shower with no jacket and no umbrella. I had two options; go back into the library and wait until the rain had passed or I could run home and hope that I didn't get too wet (or that I'd be able to dry off quickly when I got back). I felt a little bit like I was constantly running around in circles – I work too much and I loose track of time and what day it is or I don't work enough and I end up getting distracted by Kai. I was much better at this balance thing when I was working towards my goal of getting a place here, it was easier then.

Deciding to ignore my failings as a responsible grown up adult human for now I turned to go back into the library but found the door had been locked. I looked at my watch. It was one minute passed six and the door said that it closed at six. I groaned. I had literally missed my chance to go back into the library to wait for the rain to pass by a minute. Granted I would have been kicked out about a minute ago anyway so, realistically, I would still be in the same predicament as I already was.

I sighed and resigned myself to the walk home in the pouring rain, thankful that my backpack was at least waterproof, and left the shelter of the library doorway. It was raining harder than I thought and I was soaked by the time I reached the bottom of the steps. It wasn't all that bad really, I thought lying through my teeth to myself, I mean it was only a ten minute walk to my house. Not that far at all right? A car drove past a huge puddle sending water splashing over me. At least I was already wet but I imagine the fuck weasel drove through that puddle on purpose just to splash me.

I pushed my hair out of my eyes and carried on walking. I heard another car drive up beside me, this one slower than the last. I ignored it, kept my head down and carried on. The car didn't speed up but continued to crawl along beside me as I walked. I continued to ignore it (seriously what was this guy's problem) until I heard the window roll down.

"Need a ride?" a familiar voice asked. I turned and realised that Kai was in the driver's seat. I stopped and leaned down so I could talk to him through the window.

"It's fine," I told him. "I'm not that far away from my halls."

"Max it's pissing it down with rain, get in the car." he said.

"Look seriously it's fine." I said. "I'm already wet." I should just accept the lift. I should stop being such a stubborn arse and just let Kai take me home. I don't know why I was being stubborn. Maybe I didn't trust myself enough to be on my own with Kai when there was no chance of us being interrupted by anyone. Apparently I am such a sea of raging hormones that I couldn't be alone with my ex long enough for him to drive me home. I'm so screwed!

"You're shivering." Kai stated. He wasn't wrong. Now that I wasn't moving I was starting to get cold in just a t-shirt and dungarees.

"I don't want to get the inside of your car all wet." I said. It was a lame excuse. I knew it, Kai knew it and he was not going to take no for an answer. He glared at me.

"Max Hikaru Tate I'm not going to ask you again, now get in the fucking car!" he snapped. I stopped and blinked at him. He continued to glare at me and I came back to myself. I opened the door and got in the car.

"Alright, alright," I grumbled as I buckled my seat belt. "no need to middle name me." Kai drove off and it was only now that I was out of the rain that I realised how cold I was. I brought my hands up to my mouth and blew on them to warm them up. Kai noticed and leaned over to turn the heater on.

"Here." he said before turning his attention back to the road. I held my hands in front of the heater and began to feel a little bit better. I was still really nervous about being alone in the car with Kai. I couldn't work out if it was because I wanted to stay in here with him for longer or I wanted to get out as soon as possible as it was a very short drive back to mine and before I knew it Kai had pulled up outside my halls.

"Thanks," I said smiling shyly at him. "I didn't mean to be a nuisance and make you go out of your way."

"Don't be silly." he told me. "It was no trouble and you would have frozen if you'd walked."

"Well thank you anyway." I said. God he looked good sitting there with one hand hanging lazily over the steering wheel. It took everything in me not to lean over and kiss him like nothing had happened but I somehow managed to open the door and get out of the car.

I ran up to the door and under the tiny bit of shelter began to rummage around for my keys. They weren't in my pockets and they didn't seem to be anywhere in my bag at all. Shy of tipping the entire contents onto the wet floor to make sure they definitely weren't in there I could assume that I hadn't picked them up when I left this morning. Shit! I knew Kenny was away until tomorrow, Emily and the rest of The All Stars were in rehearsals and Mariah and the White Tigers were doing some extra-curricular performing off campus. I didn't know anyone else who would have a key and be able to let me in as the accommodation office would be closed now too.

I turned around. Kai's car was still there and I could see him watching me through the window, looking confused. I run back over the car. Kai wound down the window as I approached the car.

"I appear to be slightly locked out." I said.

"Slightly?" he replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Okay I am locked out." I said. Kai chuckled.

"Get back in, you can stay at mine tonight and get replacement keys in the morning." he said. I should protest this – I really should, I don't know if I can trust myself around him for an entire night – but it was wet and I was cold so I opened the car door and got back in. Kai slipped the car into gear and drove off.

"Thank you," I said. "I'm sorry for being such a pain."

"It's fine." Kai replied. "I mean we're friends, right? Friends help each other out."

"Yeah I guess." I said. I'd never thought of the prospect of Kai and I being friends. To be perfectly honest I'd never really been friends with an ex before (although I had only really ever had two exes; Kai being on of them). If I thought about it it might actually make things a whole lot easier if I thought of Kai as a friend rather than my ex (who I'm not over). Anything to get me through spending the night at his, alone with him.

When we got to Kai's he gave me some dry clothes and hung mine up in the shower to dry off and made me a cup of tea. It felt good to be out of the rain and in clothes that weren't sticking to me. We were sitting in the kitchen drinking in silence and it was nice. It was like nothing had happened between us, Kai was never much of a talker and that hadn't really changed much. I looked at him over the rim of my mug and smiled to myself. How was it that even after all this time he still made my heart flutter like I was fifteen and he was kissing me for the very first time? He caught my eye and I looked away, blushing slightly.

"Hey Maxie!" Enrique's voice rang out loudly in the silent kitchen. He clapped me roughly on the shoulder and I nearly spilt my tea. "What'cha doing in our neck of the woods?" He and Oliver sat at the table in between me and Kai while Johnny and Robert busied themselves with numerous bottles of alcohol. I blushed – of course Kai lived in the same halls as 'Vocal Majesty' and they would see me in his clothes in their kitchen.

"I locked myself out of my flat and Kai was nice enough to let me stay here and give me a change of clothes." I said. Johnny hardly bothered to hide his snort and Oliver glance between me and Kai looking both suspicious and gleeful.

"Oh did he now?" he said. Kai rolled his eyes, got to his feet and left the kitchen.

"I should probably go..." I began and made to follow him but Oliver grabbed my wrist and pulled me back down into my chair.

"He can wait a few more minutes." Oliver grinned. Johnny and Robert joined us at the table. All of them were staring at me like I was being put through some kind of intervention. Johnny opened a bottle of whiskey and offered me a glass. I declined, if I was going to keep my hormones in check tonight I needed to have a clear head meaning no alcohol whatsoever. Enrique poured himself a glass of rum and turned to me.

"So Max, what's actually going on between you and Kai?" he asked. I blinked. He certainly didn't waste time.

"Um nothing," I said. "we're just friends." Johnny laughed derisively.

"Sure," he said. "and you just happen to be in his clothes staying over at his for the night because..."

"I got locked out of my room." I finished.

"And that's it?" Robert asked.

"Well yeah." I replied.

"And Dr Best's class was what?" Johnny asked. "A lapse in judgement on your part?"

"God damn it does everyone know about that?" I muttered "Yes that was a lapse in judgement, okay?"

"So you guys haven't slept together?" Enrique asked.

"No." I said. "Well not since I've been here." I added.

"But you used to though?" Oliver pressed. Damn this really was starting to feel like an intervention, I should have just kept my mouth shut.

"Back when we both lived in Japan." I said giving them the cliff-noted version of events. "We broke up when I moved to America."

"But nothing's happened since?" Enrique asked again.

"No." I said.

"Now that's very interesting." he smirked taking a sip of his drink.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well Kai and I share a wall and a few months ago I heard him moaning your name through the wall." he said. I blanked.

"What?"

"The obvious assumption was that the two of you were getting hot and heavy so I sent Mariah a text to see if I could find an excuse to get out for a bit and imagine my surprise when she said she was hanging out with you and Emily." he said with a shit-eating grin.

"What?" I was still having a hard time processing this. Kai still thought about me like that? I knew Tala had told me that he was still into me and he had practically jerked me off under the table in class but I had no idea he still thought of me while writing his own happy ending. The thought made me blush and sent some rather nice images (that I really shouldn't be having right now) running through my brain.

"I've seen the way you look at each other," Oliver said placing a hand over mine. "so what's stopping the two of you from giving it another go?" I sighed, shrugging.

"I just don't want to get hurt again." I said. "When I moved to America Kai said we could make it work and then disappeared off the face of the earth. I don't want to go through all that again."

"Very sensible Max." Robert said. "No point opening yourself up to heartbreak from someone who has already hurt you; never go back to an ex, you broke up for a reason."

"Your advice is terrible." Johnny stated. "Don't listen to him Max."

"Besides," Oliver added. "it's not as if you guys really broke up officially in the first place by the sounds of it."

"When you put it like that..." I began. Maybe it was time that I admitted to myself that I was still in love with Kai. It had always been there (even when I was with Brooklyn) and had only really come to a head when I saw him that first day in class and had been growing ever since. I shook my head. This was crazy! I couldn't just hope that if we got back together he wouldn't just bail again like last time. "No, this is insane. I can't just go up to him and kiss him like nothing happened."

"Why not?" Enrique asked.

"Yeah," added Oliver. "you want him..."

"Don't deny it, you know you do." Johnny cut in when I opened my mouth to protest.

"He wants you," Oliver continued. "so why don't you just go for it and see what happens?"

God he was right! If I had any hope of spending the night with Kai and remaining in any way sane then I would have to tell him how I felt about him. Even if he did turn me down flat, which he might well do (just because everyone told me he still wanted me there was no guarantee that he would want to give it another try), then I would at least know and be able to sleep tonight rather than constantly worry about it.

"Okay," I said getting to my feet. "I'll go tell him.

"'Atta boy Maxie!" Enrique grinned.

"Follow your heart and find romance!" Oliver gushed.

"How drunk are you?" Johnny asked him nodding down to the almost full glass of wine in front of him.

"I'm a romantic." Oliver replied shrugging.

"And if everything goes south we'll be here with alcohol." Robert said. I may have to take him up on that.

"Thanks guys." I picked up a glass filled with water and downed the contents. It wasn't water. I shuddered. "This is gin, isn't it?"

"Could be worse," Enrique grinned. "could have been Grappa."

"True." The Dutch courage was probably good for me as there was a chance I would get to Kai's door and bottle it. I drank another shot of Gin. "Right I'm gone."

Before I could talk myself out of it I ran to Kai's room and pounded on the door. He opened it, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. Before he could say anything and before I could change my mind I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him into a kiss. Kai reacted almost immediately to it wrapping his arms around my waist and kissing me back with equal passion. God it felt good to have Kai's lips on mine again, it was like everything melted away and we were just carrying on right where we left off.

One of his hands tangled in my hair and he bit down on my bottom lip, dragging his teeth along it before slipping his tongue into my mouth. I moaned, pressing myself right up against him and threading my fingers into his hair. He pulled back slightly.

"Have you been drinking?" he asked.

"I had, like, one gin." I told him diving in to kiss him again. God it felt so good! The hand in my hair gripped it tightly and pulled, forcing my head back and away from his lips. He looked down at me, his eyes hard but I could still see the lust burning behind them.

"Are you sure you want this?" he asked. There was a definite edge to his voice, like he was having trouble keeping himself in check. I felt myself shiver at the thought. I met his gaze and made sure he knew that I was deadly serious.

"I've never wanted anything more." I told him. A smiled spread across his face and he kissed me again.

 **Chapter title lyrics taken from 'Human' by Jon McLaughlin**


	12. It Just Makes Me Want You More

**Now it really is the moment you've all be waiting for... The Smut Chapter! :D hope you enjoy it, I really quite enjoyed writing it**

Despite the fact that I had only had one drink Kai told me to take a shower to clear my head. I could understand his reasoning behind it. As far as he was concerned my personality had done a complete one-eighty. I had gone from constantly fighting him and telling him that I wanted nothing else to do with him to kissing him out of the blue, I could understand his reservations. He wanted to make sure that this was something I really wanted and I wasn't just reacting to the fact that I was spending the night at his and that I had even the smallest amount of alcohol in my system.

I showered as quickly and thoroughly as I could but I did think things through. After kissing Kai I was even more sure that I wanted him. I wanted, no I needed to feel his hands on me again, feel his lips on mine and feel him deep inside me. Even if in the morning he decided that this had been a bad idea I knew that this was exactly what I wanted. My heart was still hammering in my chest though. I wanted this but I was still incredibly nervous – I always was when I was with Kai. He seemed to have this ability to make me feel like a scared little virgin every single time we were together. It sent shivers down my spine and I loved it.

Once I was done I dried off as quickly as I could and put on the shirt Kai had given me earlier. My fingers trembled as I buttoned it up. The shirt was much too big for me and finished at about my mid-thigh so in an attempt to be seductive and sexy I decided to forgo the rest of my clothes, they were going to come off again soon anyway so it hardly seemed worth it. I took a deep breath and opened the door of Kai's en-suite and stepped into his bedroom. I was glad Kai lived in the more expensive halls where you had your own bathroom and no room-mate. It meant that whatever happened tonight there was no chance of us being disturbed.

I leaned against the door frame, trying my best to look sexy, and watched Kai. He hadn't heard me come out of the shower and seemed to be busying himself untangling... oh god was that rope? My stomach lurched. I tore my eyes away from his hands and up his chest. He had rid himself of his shirt while I was in the shower and he looked even better than the last time I had seen him without a shirt on. His muscles were more defined and his hip bones more pronounced. I wanted to run my fingers over his chest, map it out and memorise it. I could feel all the blood in my body rushing to either my face or my cock and I bit my lip to keep myself from letting out a moan.

Kai looked around at that exact moment and smirked when he caught me staring. I could feel my blush deepening as he looked me up and down, eyes hungry. He beckoned me over to him and like a well trained puppy I went. He grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me into a heated kiss, his teeth gently scraping over my bottom lip and making me moan into his mouth. My knees felt like they were going to give way and I would have collapsed into a boneless heap on the floor if it wasn't for Kai's grip on the shirt holding me up.

He pulled back, his eyes raking over my flushed face. The kiss had left me breathless and I grabbed hold of his belt loops to ground myself. His eyes lingered on my lips and I felt a shiver tip-toe down my spine. I leaned up and tried to kiss him again but his grip on the collar kept me from moving. One of his hands left the collar and went to cup my check. The tension hung heavy in the air as he ran his thumb over my bottom lip. I leaned into his touch and whimpered softly.

"Max," he said, voice husky. God, I'd forgotten what that voice did to me. "do you trust me?"

"Wha...?" I was too dazed from our last kiss and the tension running through my body from his touch. Kai let go of my collar and pulled something out of the back pocket of his jeans.

"Do you trust me?" he asked again holding it up. My eyes widened. I swallowed and my mouth dried up as I realised he was holding a bit-gag, the strap hanging lazily off his index finger. Was that what the rope was for too? We had talked about this when we were together; a mutual fantasy that left me completely at his mercy for an entire night: tied, gagged, blindfolded and helpless. Apparently Kai had still been thinking about it. Another shiver of desire ran through me. I swallowed.

"Yes." I said meeting his eye. The thought of him actually acting out that fantasy made my cock twitch and my stomach felt like someone had dropped a dozen snaked into it. I was nervous and I think he could tell because he chuckled and dropped the bit-gag on his bed and brushed my fringe out of my eyes.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'm not going to push you into anything tonight. I just wanted to see what your limits were."

"You wouldn't be pushing me," I garbled. I was almost too eager. To have the idea of that fantasy dangled in front of me and then snatched away at the last second was like torture. "I..." Kai cupped my face with both hands and pressed his lips to mine, effectively silencing me.

"Listen," he said. "we haven't been together in a couple of years, we need to build up to that. I just wanted to know if you really were okay with this." I reached up to tangle my fingers in his hair and pulled him down into another kiss.

"I really am okay with this." I told him. "I'm totally comfortable with whatever you want... I'm yours."

"Good," Kai smirked. "because right now I want to get you out of this shirt and underneath me on my bed."

"I... I'm okay with that." I stammered. Seriously how does he do it? He just has to kiss me and tell me that he wants to take things slowly for my benefit and I'm putty in his hands.

He turned me round, kissing me as he did, slipping his tongue past my lips to massage against mine, and gently lay me down on his bed. His lips still against mine he climbed on top of me. I ran my hands down his back, feeling hard muscles rippling under my touch, and let them rest on the waistband of his jeans. I could feel his cock hard, straining against his jeans and pressing against my thigh. I shifted my hips up slightly and a soft groan reverberated through Kai's chest to mine.

Kai took my bottom lip between his teeth and bit down, hard, before dragging his teeth over it. I moaned heatedly and arched my body up against his. He chuckled and began trailing hot, opened mouthed kisses down my neck, lightly sucking on the skin just above my pulse. My heart was beating so fast he could probably feel it under his lips. His tongue traced over my collar bone and down to the opening of the shirt. I sucked in a breath, desperately trying to hold it together but as skilled fingers began undoing the buttons, light kisses pressing to each new bit of exposed skin, I could feel my sanity slowly unravelling.

Once my shirt was open Kai pulled back, sitting on his heels between my thighs and just running his hands over me. They seemed to leave a path of fire in their wake and I was visibly trembling under him. Hands turned to fingertips and I couldn't help but imagine those fingers deep inside me. I let out an involuntary moan and the fingers that had been tracing over my hips – so close to my cock – stopped instantly. Kai chuckled and leaned up to hover over me.

"What are you thinking?" he asked. He leaned up to whisper in my ear. "You thinking about my fingers inside you, preparing you for my cock?" His tongue traced up the shell of my ear and I couldn't help arching up into him, desperate to feel skin on skin. "Well?" he asked when I gave no verbal response.

"Yes!" I panted. "God yes, please..."

"Do you know how long I've waited to hear those words from you?" he asked pulling back and undoing the buttons on his jeans. He pushed them and his boxers off and I swallowed the lump in my throat, seeing just how aroused he was. I just about had time to struggle out of the shirt before he was on me again. His lips at my ear and his cock pressing hard against the inside of my thigh. "Too fucking long. Having to watch you up on stage in class, the way your hips move when you're really feeling the music is so fucking delicious I couldn't take my eyes off you. Trying to keep my hands off you was like torture."

"Kai!" I gasped he took hold of my cock and slowly began to pump it. I thrust my hips up slightly, desperate to feel more. He kissed me, nipping my bottom lip lightly, before he reached over to the top draw of his bedside table and pulled out a bottle of lube. I couldn't take my eyes off him as he flipped the cap open and began to slick up his fingers. He looked up and smirked at me and my stomach tightened. He traced one of his fingers up my thighs, over my cock and down to slide inside me.

"God I've missed that face." Kai said huskily. As his fingers entered me my eyes slid closed and my teeth sunk into my bottom lip but I couldn't keep in the moan that reverberated through my body. It felt like there were thousands of tiny electric shocks coursing through me as Kai slipped another finger in. I grabbed hold of the sheets, twisting them in my fists, desperately trying to ground myself. He began thrusting, pushing his fingers as deep as they would go before adding a third.

"Kai, I panted, holding back a keening moan as his fingers just brushed my prostate. "please... I need you."

He pulled his fingers out and I bit back the whine of protest knowing that what was coming next was going to be so much better. I stared, transfixed, as he reached over to his beside table and grabbed a condom. He tore the packet open and rolled the latex over his length. He picked up the bottle of lube and as he did he caught me staring. I blushed, fireworks sparking to life in my stomach as a wicked grin spread over his face. I'd seen that grin before and it always meant he was scheming something. He leaned over me, close enough to touch but not to kiss.

"Touch yourself." he commanded pulling away. I waited for a second to see if he would say anything else. When he remained silent, watching my every move, with a slightly trembling hand I reached down and began to slowly jerk myself off. My eyes slid closed as I picked up the pace. Soft gasps and whimpers escaped from my throat and all I could think of was Kai. It was Kai between my thighs, it was Kai who had been kissing me, touching me, making me hard and it was Kai coating himself in lubricant, about to fuck me.

I could feel myself getting closer to the edge, desperately trying to hold back from ending the night here but I hadn't been told to stop. Suddenly Kai grabbed hold of my wrist. Breathing heavily I opened my eyes to see Kai positioned between my thighs. I removed my hand from my cock and braced myself against the mattress as Kai's fingertips dug into my hips and he slid inside me.

"Oh god!" I moaned loudly, not caring that Enrique could probably hear me through the wall if he was in his room. My hands ran up Kai's back to tangle in his hair and pull him down into a hard kiss. This gave me time to adjust, to ground myself, because if he started thrusting right away I thought there was a good chance I was going to die. Just feeling him inside me, his body pressed right up against mine, made everything else melt away. Once I was used to feeling him inside me I thrust my hips up ever so slightly, silently telling him I was ready.

Kai slowly pulled out and thrust back in, going as deep as he could. I bit my lip desperate to stop myself from making too much noise but when he thrust back in, getting faster and faster, hitting my prostate and making me arch off the bed I stopped caring. I clung to his back, panting as I tried to pull enough air into my lungs. As always Kai seemed much more composed than I was but he seemed to be unravelling faster than normal. He grabbed one of my wrists and slammed it down against the mattress above my head and pinned it there. He did the same with my other hand, pinning them both down with one of his own.

Being pinned down and at his mercy made the whole thing even hotter as I writhed against him, desperate to break out and be able to touch him. His free hand ran down my chest to begin stroking my cock in time with each well placed thrust. The double assault on my cock and prostate coupled with the fact that I couldn't touch him made all my muscles instantly tighten.

"Fuck!" Kai hissed as I clenched around him. His thrusts were getting faster and more erratic and I could tell he was close. I was too. A few more hard thrusts that hit my prostate dead on and I was coming, liquid fire coursing through my entire system and coating my stomach in it. My muscles jerked and tightened as I came and, with a strangled groan of my name, Kai reached his end too.

As we came down from our high Kai kissed me. It was slow and deep and it felt as if nothing had changed from the last time we slept together. Now that I was here I never wanted to be anywhere else. Kai pulled out of me and lay down on the bed next to me. He passed me some tissue and we both quickly cleaned ourselves up, the only sound in the room our heavy breathing. As soon as we were both done I turned to face Kai. He draped an arm over my waist and I suddenly felt very self-conscious, like a virgin after their first time.

"Hey." I said softly, looking into his eyes.

"Hey yourself." he said. He leaned over and kissed my forehead. "That was amazing."

"It was." I agreed reaching out to brush his fringe out of his eyes. "Why was I fighting this so much?" It was more a question to myself than it was to him. He let out a short laugh.

"Because we're both idiots?" he offered.

"Probably."

"I was fighting it too." he said. "I kept telling myself that it was over but every time I saw you I just wanted you. It was too hard to stay away."

"I know." I agreed. All I wanted was to stay like this forever. I was in bed with Kai – the guy turning out to be the fucking love of my life – and I didn't want to think about the notion of not being with him. So then I said something stupid. "Do you maybe want to try and give us another go?"

Kai stared at me, as if trying to process what I had just said, letting it sink in. I could feel heat creeping up the back of my neck and I was pretty sure my face was bright red. A grin spread across Kai's face; the kind that nobody else got to see, the kind that was reserved just for when he was really happy. He kissed my lips softly.

"Yeah," he replied. "I do."

 **Chapter title lyrics take from 'Closer' by Dido**


	13. Where Do You Go If You Fall Too Far

**Ah surprise weekend off - yay! Council still haven't come to sort out my hot water - boo! But this made me happy so that's something. There's a fair amount of Mariam bashing in this chapter but I personally thought she was kind of cray-cray in series so there you go. Hope you enjoy :D**

I stayed at Kai's for the rest of the weekend. We spent most of the time in bed making up for lost time, only stopping for food and for me to text Kenny to let him know that I had locked myself out and would be back Monday evening. It was the perfect way to spend the weekend. We didn't bother with clothes unless we were leaving the bedroom and spent most of the time starting to watch a film and then opting for kissing or fooling around instead.

When Monday morning finally rolled around I was so reluctant to get out of bed. It was warm, it was comfy and I was still sort of in a sex-coma from the previous night. I reached over to drape my arm across Kai but he wasn't there. I stretched and rubbed my eyes, hearing the faint sound of the shower from the en-suit. Sitting up I stretched forward until my shoulders cracked then got out of bed and made my way over to the bathroom.

The curtain was pulled across but I could just about make out Kai's silhouette, strong and powerful, underneath the water. My mind was already concocting some very nice images of Kai; wet hair plastered against his back, water cascading down over his chest... I bit my lip to stop myself from moaning there and then. As I stood staring at the shower I had an idea. I slipped inside as quietly as possible but Kai didn't seem to hear me over the shower. I slipped my arms around his waist, running my hands up his chest, loving the feeling of his muscles rippling underneath my fingers.

"Max what are you doing?" he asked.

"Saving water?" I offered kissing along his shoulder blades. Kai chuckled placing a hand over one of mine.

"I never knew you were such an eco-warrior."

"Totally," I replied running my free hand down his stomach. "plus I thought you might like some company."

"I would love some company." he said and I could hear the grin in his voice. He turned to face me, fingers lacing in my hair and pulling me close. "Plus we'd be saving the planet so that would be an added bonus."

"Exactly," I said wrapping my arms around his neck as he pulled me up into a kiss. I pressed myself up against him and gave his bottom lip a playful bite. I felt his groan reverberate against me rather than heard it but the next thing I knew his fingers tightened in my hair and he pulled me away and shoved my up against the wall so I was facing it. A hand ran up my thigh while the other pinned both of mine above my head. As he made a point of touching me, making me hard, but purposefully avoiding where I wanted him to touch. I thrust my hips forward, trying to get him to touch my cock. He chuckled, nipping the join between my neck and shoulder.

"Am I going to have to teach you a lesson about teasing me?" he asked, kissing up my neck and dragging his teeth over my earlobe. Despite the heat of the water I shivered with arousal.

"God, I hope so." I replied. He spun me around again, barely giving me time to register before kissing me again. I slipped my tongue passed his lips, grabbing hold of his hair as he reached down to grasp a handful of my backside. A moan sounded in my throat as I pressed myself right up against him, feeling every curve and contour of his muscles. He used he hold on me to pull me even closer and I just tried not to melt as his lips trailed down my neck. All I could focus on was Kai, his hands and his lips. I barely heard the door of the bathroom open.

"Hey Kai!" I heard Tala call out. Both Kai and I jumped at the sound of his voice. Kai recovered faster than I did.

"Yeah?" he replied, his hands still running up and down my upper body. My hand flew to my mouth, biting one of my knuckles to stop myself from either moaning or giggling at the absurdity of the situation.

"You seen Max around at all?" Tala asked.

"No." Kai replied grinning down at me. I desperately tried to stifle my laughter as he kissed my neck again softly. "Why?"

"Thought he might still be here." Tala said.

"What do you need him for?" Kai asked absent-mindedly, not paying a hell of a lot of attention to Tala and opting instead for kissing me, practically ignoring the fact that Tala was standing only a few feet away.

"There's a girl downstairs who says she's his girlfriend." Tala stated.

"What?!" Kai and I shouted in surprised unison. Kai pulled the curtain back far enough so that he and I could stick our heads out but not far enough for Tala to see anything.

"Oh hey Max," he said not sounding in the least bit surprised that I was there, "there's a girl downstairs who's looking for you. She said she's your girlfriend and she's been to yours and Kenny sent her over here."

"What the hell?" I asked.

"Did you know about this?" Kai asked turning to me.

"No!" I replied. I turned to Tala. "Did she tell you her name?"

"Nope," Tala shook his head. "she just said she was your girlfriend and that she was looking for you."

"What the fuck is going on?" Kai asked turning off the water and grabbing both himself and me a towel. Once I was decent I stepped out of the shower followed by Kai.

"Look I'm as confused as you are." I told him.

"Listen," Tala said putting his hands up in defence. "I'm just passing on the message, if you don't go downstairs soon she's going to be coming up."

He left the room and I just stood there reeling. What the hell was going on? Who could this girl even be? I had literally no idea – I hadn't had a girlfriend since I was in, maybe Middle School. I turned to look at Kai but he had already started getting dressed, purposefully avoiding my eye. I did the same thing. I needed to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible so I could clear this all up and patch things up with him.

"Listen Kai..." I began once we were both dressed. He brushed me off.

"Let's just see what she has to say first." he said.

We made our way out of Kai's room and downstairs. My head was still trying to think of who this girl could possibly be to know my by name and know that I was at this school. It wasn't until we got to the front door and I saw the girl in question that I realised, with painful clarity, exactly how she knew me and exactly how she found me.

"Mariam?" I could only stare at her in confusion. She turned to me and she looked pissed. This confused me even more. Surely I was the one who had the right to be pissed – she turned up out of the blue and tracked me down like a crazed stalker.

"So here you are." she said folding her arms across her chest and glaring at me. "You know I've been halfway across this entire campus looking for you."

"And I'd like more of an explanation of why you're here if you don't mind." I said. "Like, seriously, how did you even find me all the way out here?"

"Your mother told me which school you went to and gave me your address so I could come visit you because you haven't called me, emailed me or wrote to me in nearly a year. A fucking year Max!" she said.

"That still doesn't explain how you found me." I said.

"England isn't that large." Mariam said huffily.

"We're in fucking Wales!" I grumbled. The UK is not that hard to grasp, seriously!

"I'm sorry," Kai said from beside me. "who are you?" Mariam sniffed, looking Kai up and down as if she was appraising him.

"I am Mariam," she told him. "Max's fiancée and you are?" Beside me I felt Kai's entire body stiffen. I turned to stare at Mariam.

"What?" I cried. "What the hell Mariam?"

"Are you serious?" she asked. "After all this time you're still acting as if you and I aren't supposed to be together?"

"Because this," I said gesturing between the two of us. "is not a thing. It never was a thing and it is never going to be a thing. God how many boyfriends do I have to have before you and my mother get it through your heads that it is never going to happen because I don't swing that way. I like guys!"

"What does that even mean?" Mariam asked. "I don't understand, surely this is just some kind of Music School phase?"

"No it's not," I said. "I am not sexually attracted to girls and this has been the case for a long time."

"How can you not be attracted to girls? You're a guy."

"Yes but I'm just not okay," I said. "It's just how I am."

"Are you just getting cold feet?" she asked. "Because we can talk about this, I really don't understand what's wrong with you."

"Then understand this," I said. "I am never ever going to be yours. Not just because I'm not attracted to girls but because you're a bitch! You can think what you will and tell people that you're my fiancée or girlfriend or whatever all you like but I will never be yours, okay?" I was going for the cruel to be kind (although just coming off as cruel) but really I didn't care how she took it. I was furious that both she and my mother had been planing this for a while because they clearly had for her to have found me like this. Mariam's eyes began to well up.

"Fine," she said and turned away. "I'll be waiting at yours where we can have a proper conversation about all of this with no one else around." She marched off, presumably going back to my room to wait for me.

"Fuck," I sighed once she had gone. "that's a whole other conversation I'm going to have to have. I still don't understand what the fuck is going through hers and my mother's heads." I couldn't stop myself from babbling. Kai wasn't saying anything so I kept talking to compensate. I placed a hand on his shoulder. "Hey."

"Is it true?" he asked lowering his head so that I couldn't see his eyes.

"What?"

"You and that girl?" he clarified. "Is it true?"

"No!" I cried. I ducked down trying to look into his eyes but he kept avoiding my gaze. "Everything Mariam said about her being my fiancée and all the rest of it isn't true."

"So you say." Kai muttered. I blanched, taken aback.

"Wait," I said trying to make him look at me. "you do believe me don't you?" Kai didn't say anything ad continued to look away. "Kai... what she said, it's not true."

"Then who the hell is she?" he asked.

"She's just some girl that my mum was trying to set me up with and now she won't leave me alone no matter what I seem to tell her." I told him. "Kai, listen to me, please, I..."

"No!" he sharply cut me off. All I could do was stare at him, blinking in shock. He removed my hand from where I had grabbed his sleeve and turned to leave. "I've been through this once already," he said, quietly. "I'm not going through it again."

"Kai, wait..."

Before I could stop him or say anything else he left and went back inside. I stared after him for a good long while, too stunned to do anything or react in any way. It was like someone had hit pause on me and I was waiting for everything to sink in once they hit play again. I couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't do anything apart from stare after Kai.

"Max?" Oliver's voice said from behind me. "Are you okay?" I opened my mouth to answer but as soon as I did everything hit me with painful clarity. I sank to my knees as tears began to spill from my eyes. Oliver knelt down beside me, wrapping his arms around me while I covered my face with my hands and cried. How could I have fucked this up this quickly?

 **Chapter title lyrics are from 'Indecisive' by Newton Faulkner**


	14. I Think Some Company Is Overdue

**Well after the fallout of last time Max is finally going to find out the real reason when he and Kai broke up all those years ago... this has not been fun for him, poor kid, anyway hope you enjoy :D**

It had been about a week (I think... I'd actually stopped paying attention to what day it was unless I had something specific to do and even then I needed to be reminded what day it was) since Mariam had turned up at Kai's declaring that she was my fiancée. I had been outside the flat with Oliver for a good twenty minutes before I finally stopped crying and had felt up to going back to mine and facing Mariam again.

After a call to my mother, demanding to know what the hell was going on, Mariam and I properly had it out with each other. There was a lot of shouting, insults hurled (and in her case a few books with startling accuracy) until finally we calmed down enough to talk like sensible adults. Finally we came to an understanding, she left and I just went to bed. I felt sick and I just wanted to crawl into my bed and never emerge again. I even sent Eddie a text to apologise for not being in class. I didn't feel like I could face people at that moment.

And I hadn't. For the next week (potential week) I spent most of my time that wasn't in class in my room studying. I would use my old technique of throwing myself into work until everything had blown over (not my finest moment I will admit). A few people had been calling and texting – including my mother and Tyson – but I just wasn't in the mood to reply.

I mean I still saw people in class and I still spoke to Kenny and Dizzi and sometimes Mariah and Emily (or both) would come and stick their head in so I wasn't a complete social recluse but it was very rare that I left the room for anything that wasn't class or showering. Okay so maybe I was a complete social recluse but at least I was still showering. Plus I managed to ace two tests and one of Hiro's performances (those were the worst classes – the classes with Kai in them) so social reclusion was beginning to look like the deal of the day.

I just couldn't focus on what had happened between Kai and I – all those old feelings resurfacing like a raw wound I couldn't stop scratching – or I would break. I knew that if I stopped to think about it, which I occasionally would just as I was trying to sleep, then I would feel the weight of it all pressing down on me and the hole in my chest would open up and everything would be so painfully real. So I was quite happy to just do nothing and focus on my work. But apparently I was the only person who thought that.

"Do you wanna build a snowman?" Tala sang through my door obnoxiously after knocking on it one afternoon. I groaned, closing my eyes.

"Oh no!"

"Come on let's go and play

I never see you anymore

Come out the door

It's like you've gone away!"

"Max," Dizzi said from where Kenny had placed his laptop on his bed. "please, for the love of god, make him stop."

"How?" I asked.

"I don't care." she said. "Just make it end."

"I agree," Kenny added. "before he moves on to 'Let It Go' and I'm forced to spray him like we used to do the dog before we had him neutered." Outside in the hall Tala continued to sing though the door.

"We used to be best buddies and now we're not

I wish you could tell me why

Do you wanna build a snowman?

It doesn't have to be a snowman."

"Go away Tala!" I yelled at him through the door before cursing myself. Isn't that how that stupid song goes.

"Okay fine." Tala replied and I could practically hear him smirking through the door. There was silence and I sighed with relief. Maybe now I could get on with my work.

"Do you wanna build a snowman?"

"God fucking damn it!"

* * *

"Max..." Tala said knocking softly on the door. He had gone through most of that stupid song just to try and get a rise out of me. I had been angry at first but now I was starting to feel different – he clearly cared enough to try and annoy me out of my room which was sweet if a little mad.

"Please I know you're in there

People are asking where you've been"

Max just go out there," Dizzi said. "he clearly wants your attention.

"I know." I replied sighing.

"I'm right out here for you

Just let me in

We only have each other

It's just you and me

What are we gonna do?

Do you wanna build a snowman?"

I got to my feet and slowly went over to the door and opened it. Tala was sitting on the floor leaning against the wall. When he heard the door open he got to his feet. I crossed my arms over my chest and looked down at my feet. I couldn't work out if I was feeling embarrassed for being a hermit for so long but I suddenly felt very self conscious.

"Hey." I mumbled.

"Hey." he replied. "Glad you finally opened the door."

"Yeah well it was either that of 'The Chief' was going to spray you with a water bottle." I told him.

"So you want to tell me why you've been hiding out in your room like a weirdo all week?" he asked.

"I... I've had work." I said. It was a lame excuse but I really didn't want to tell him the real reason – that felt even more pathetic. Unfortunately, for me, Tala was more perceptive than I had thought.

"Really?" he asked giving me a sceptical look. "And Kai has absolutely nothing to do with it?"

"What do you mean?" I asked. Tala sighed.

"You really want to do it like this?" he asked. I just shifted awkwardly. Apparently I did. "He hasn't been out of his room except for class either. I mean that's nothing unusual for Kai but when the both of you are being reclusive it's obvious why."

"I don't know what to say to him." I said. I could feel myself welling up slightly. I hadn't spoken to anyone about the whole thing – I had been trying so hard not to think about it but if Tala was here then I had been doing it for too long.

"You want to know why Kai acted the way he did?" he asked. I nodded hugging myself tighter, desperately trying not to cry.

"I just don't understand." I said. "I thought that we could have worked through it but..."

"But he shut you out?" Tala finished.

"Yeah." I sniffed. That hole inside my chest was opening up again and the only thing I could do was try to hold it in before I just broke down completely. Tala sighed and I purposefully didn't meet his eyes. He wrapped his arms around me and I broke down, sobbing into his chest as everything I had been trying to push down for the last week came to the surface. I clung to the back of his shirt to keep myself grounded while he gently stroked my hair. I cried into his chest until it was just dry, heaving sobs and I felt able to look at him.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I don't know." I said wiping my face with the back of my hand.

"You remember when you first moved to America and you and Kai had agreed to try and make things work, despite the fact that there was at least a continent between you?" he asked.

"Um yeah..." I said. He must have been talking to Kai because I hadn't said anything to him about it.

"Well one day Kai called up you house, at the same time he usually did, and a girl answered." Tala said.

"Mariam..." This was starting to make a whole lot of sense and was probably going to make even more. Fuck!

"I guess so." Tala replied. "So this girl answers the phone and tells Kai that she's your girlfriend, asking if she could take a message so he thinks you'd moved on without talking to him about it so just never called back to make things easier."

"I didn't know anything about that." I said staring at the wall opposite me, trying to process this.

"So you haven't had a girlfriend in the last couple of years?" he asked. I shook my head.

"Not since I was about twelve." I replied. "Fucking hell Mariam."

"So yeah that's why Kai stopped calling." Tala said.

"But," I said after I thought for a second. "I called Kai when he never called me and I got some guy pick up telling me that Kai had moved on and not to call back." Tala shifted slightly.

"Yeah, sorry about that," he said. "that was me."

"I figured." I replied. "So that's why Kai and I just sort of broke up?"

"I guess so." he shrugged. "Simple misunderstanding that could have been avoided."

"Yeah if I'd have never met Mariam in the first place." I said.

"So why are you letting her screw things up this time around?" Tala asked.

"What do you mean?"

"God you're dense." Tala laughed and flicked me lightly in the forehead. I rubbed it, glaring at him. "If you're going to let this chick mess up your relationship with Kai for the second time then you really need to think about how much you really want to be with him or if you actually want to call it quits."

"I don't want to call it quits." I said, not missing a beat.

"You don't?" Tala asked grinning at me.

"No!" I cried. It was as if I was finally snapping out of my funk and coming back to myself and actually admiting that I never stopped being crazy about him.

"Then go talk to him." Tala said grinning like an idiot. I reached into my room and grabbed my trainers, pulling them on as hastily as I could.

"There's where I'm going." I said tying my laces. I stood up as soon as I was done and grinning at him.

"Go get him tiger." Tala said and gave my backside a playful smack. I turned to stare at him in mild terror.

"Just no."

"Yeah not my finest moment." he laughed. "Now go find Kai, he should be at his."

"Thanks Tala." I said before tearing off.

I ran the entire way to Kai's barely registering the pain in my side, my legs or my lungs (good lord I'm unfit). I had to stop a couple of times to catch my breath and once I was at Kai's I waited until I looked and sounded normal again. There was no way I was going to have this conversation with him sounding like something that had been reanimated. I got Enrique to buzz me in as I didn't expect Kai to let me in. I cast a glance at myself in a window, outside Kai's room, to make sure I wasn't red and sweating anymore before knocking on the door. A couple of minutes later the door opened and Kai appeared looking tired.

"Can we talk?"

 **Chapter title lyrics and all inside lyrics taken from 'Do You Wanna Build A Snowman?' from the movie Frozen**


	15. Only Half The Page Of The Story So Far

**So yet more complications because life really likes to kick you when things are going well and remind you that shit doesn't last for long... good luck Max. Hope you enjoy :D**

"What on earth are you drinking?" Emil asked me as I popped open a can of energy drink and took a swig. We were sitting in the auditorium waiting for Hiro and the rest of the class to finished filing in. I had stayed at Kai's the previous night and we hadn't gotten to sleep until probably about half past two in the morning and I was starting to feel it. I looked at the name on the can.

"Rainbow Kiss." I told her. I hadn't thought about it that much when I grabbed the can; I'd never had one before and it wasn't bad... just very sweet. Mariah snorted and Emily wrinkled her nose.

"Eww." she said. Mariah just laughed.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Do you know what a 'Rainbow Kiss' is?" Emily asked.

"A sickeningly sweet, highly caffeinated energy drink?" I offered. The girls shared a knowing look that screamed 'wrong answer'.

"Max have you ever had sexual intercourse with a lady?" Mariah asked.

"Hmm," I said pretending to think about it. "seeing as I've been gay since I was about fifteen, I'm going to say no."

"Okay so a 'Rainbow Kiss' is where you go down on a girl when she's on her period and then kiss her afterwards." Emily said.

"That's disgusting." I said without missing a beat.

"That's not the version I know." Mariah said.

"Which one are you talking about." Emily asked.

"When a guy has sex with a girl while she's on her period, cums inside her and then sucks the cum out." Mariah explained. I almost spat out the mouthful of drink I had just chugged.

"God!" I spluttered. "That's rank! I'm so glad I'm gay and don't have to deal with that shit."

"Oh please," Mariah cackled. "like felching is so hygienic."

"Touché." I replied. "Not like I ever done that either though."

"Speaking of felching..." Mariah said, grinning wickedly.

"This better not be going where I think this is going." I muttered.

"Have you and Kai had sex since you go back together?" Emily asked also grinning.

"Thank you for that segway." I replied fixing them both with the most unimpressed look I could.

"Oh come on Max," she said. "after you shut yourself in your room for a week we need to catch up on the gossip."

"Yeah," Mariah agreed. "we want details."

"You two are terrible." I said.

"Oh come on Max, please!" Emily whined.

"No!" I said.

"But we need to know." Mariah said.

"Don't you two have love lives of your own?" I asked, desperate to take some of the heat off myself.

"Oh please Michael and I have been together for ages." Emily said.

"And Enrique and I occasionally meet up and have sex." Mariah said. "It's hardly the romance of the century."

"And Kai and I are?"

"Yes!" they both said in unison.

"I'm still not having this conversation." I said and took another swig of my drink turning to my notes.

"Fine, be boring." Mariah said. "I'll just ask Enrique if he's heard you two through the wall recently."

"You have issues." I told her and kept looking at my notes. As far as I was concerned this conversation was over but then I felt a hand on the back of my neck, just bellow my ear. I leaned into the touch, my eyes sliding closed briefly before I opened them and looked up. Sure enough Kai was behind me. He smiled down at me before carrying on to find his own seat. I smiled at him and bit my lip, thinking about the night before. I was still tingling a little from it. Mariah nudged me, smirking.

"I saw that."

"What?" I asked.

"You two are so obvious." Emily said.

"We are not!"

"Really?" she asked. "because he already seems to have memorised all of your erogenous zones."

"Yeah," Mariah agreed. "you couldn't be any more obvious if you were wearing an 'I Heart Kai' t-shirt."

"So come on," Emily said as both she and Mariah began poking me in the ribs. "tell us!"

"Okay, okay, okay!" I laughed, wriggling away from them as they continued to poke me. "I'll tell you."

"Yes!" Emily cried with delight. "I knew he'd cave."

"So did you?" Mariah asked. I bit my lip and blushed.

"I'm amazed I had any bones left." I said. Both of them squealed loudly practically dog-piling me (as much as they could while still sitting), laughing. It was infectious and I found myself laughing too as I tried to scramble out from under them. We were still laughing and joking around when Hiro entered the auditorium and sat down in his usual place on the edge of the stage.

"Alright," he said loudly. "settle down." The chatter in the room died down quickly. "So as you all know your end of year exams are coming up soon and, as this place is famous for its pomp and circumstance when it comes to exams, you will be performing in front of the entire school. As well as the rest of the school you will also be performing to a panel of examiners. This year the panel is going to be made up of myself, Dr Best, Professor Topper and, the ever so professional, DJ Jazz Man."

"I love the fact that he doesn't even pretend not to hate him anymore." Emily whispered to me. I just about managed to stifle my laughter.

"You have to gain a passing grade from three out of the four of us to make it into your second year." Hiro continued. "After you've passed there is a ceremony of sorts with a few words from the school Dean. This year we are also having a special guest overseeing the exams. One of the school's chairmen, Voltair Hiwatari, will be viewing your performances to see what calibre of students you are."

"Hiwatari?" Emily whispered next to me as Hiro began lecturing us about being properly prepared and not showing ourselves, or him, up. "As in..."

"Kai's grandfather?" I whispered back. "Yeah."

"Wow so we get to see if the stoicness and good looks run in the family." Mariah whispered, giggling.

"Something like that." I replied. I couldn't tell them... not right now. I couldn't explain why the thought of Kai's grandfather overseeing our exams filled me with absolute terror and dread. I couldn't explain right now why the thought of him being anywhere near me at all, especially now that I had patched things up with Kai, made me feel sick and as if all my blood was just frozen in place. The last time I had seen Voltair Hiwatari he was determined to keep me and Kai apart and I highly doubt that would have changed in the last couple of years. "Shit!"

* * *

I was sitting alone in my room later that evening, doing some work. Kenny had gone to a meeting about rigging lights and designing technical effects for the exams. Mariah was busy with Lee with a family thing and Emily was out with Michael. Kai had sent me a text saying he would be over to keep me company as soon as he had finished an assignment he had forgotten about. There was a knock at the door. I looked at the door and then at the clock. I had thought that Kai would text me when he was on his way but maybe he had forgotten so I went over and opened the door.

The person on the other side was certainly not who I had expected it to be. Tall, imposing and still with the ability to make me feel like a child he had caught misbehaving was Kai's grandfather. My eyes widened and I could feel myself tensing up. Voltair smiled coldly down at me and I'm sure he could tell how nervous he made me.

"Good evening Mr Mizuhara." he said softly.

"It... it's Tate." I stammered.

"Well," Voltair said. "it's nice to see something about you has changed."

"I..." I started but I couldn't finished. I had no idea what I was going to say so I closed my mouth. He pushed past me and came into the room.

"I must say I'm impressed," Voltair said, changing the subject. "to get a much sought after scholarship to one of the most prestigious performing arts schools in the world."

"Thank you." I said. I would at least try to be polite, until I found out what he was doing here.

"It would be such a shame if all your hard work were suddenly to go to waste." he said.

"What?"

"From what I have been given to understand you are seeing my grandson again." he said, changing the subject yet again. "End it."

"What?" I asked for the second time.

"I want you to stop seeing Kai." he said spelling it out for me.

"No." I shot back almost immediately. I may have been quaking with fear at the mere sight of him but I was not going to back down on this. I had worked too hard to get Kai back.

"Oh I think you will Mr Tate." he said smirking.

"Why's that?" I couldn't square up to him being nearly half his height but I was going to hold my ground.

"You know that I am overseeing the end of year exams this year?" he asked. I didn't reply. "I have the final choice of who passes and advances to the second year and who doesn't" he continued taking my silence as a yes.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning," he said. "I have the power to allow you to advance into your second year or make sure that you are expelled from this school completely."

"Y... you can't do that." I stammered after his words had sunk in. He smiled that cold, calculating smile at me.

"As a chairman on the school board I can assure you, Mr Tate, I can." he said. I couldn't respond. All of a sudden it was very hard to breath. My head felt fuzzy and I felt like I might pass out. "Tell Kai that it's over." he said when I didn't reply. "I don't care what you tell him, just tell him that it's over or I will make life very difficult for you. Do you understand?"

"Yes." I said weakly. The word feeling heavy in my mouth, almost chocking me.

"Then we have an understanding." he said. "Good evening Mr Tate."

And just like that he was gone. I waited until I was sure he wasn't coming back and then sank to the floor, all the fight completely going out of me. I still couldn't believe that this was a decision I was being forced to make. I had just wanted a quiet year at the school I had worked so hard to get into. How had everything gotten so fucked up so quickly?

 **Chapter title lyrics are taken from 'Half' by G Tom Mac**


	16. You're The One That I Love

_**...And I'm Saying Goodbye**_

 **No more of an AN today I've had a super hectic day already and now I have a headache :( that's irrelavent though hope you enjoy :)**

I don't know how long I sat on my bedroom floor after Voltair had left. I just sat there trying to process everything and time sort of seemed to pass me by. So Voltair wanted me to break up with Kai or he was going to have me expelled. I still couldn't quite believe that he had the power to actually do that but at the same time I didn't think I could take that chance. I didn't want to leave Kai though. I couldn't. I had spent so long being in love with him and finally admitting to myself that I was and then with all the problems with Mariam. It seemed as if the universe didn't want us to be together but I couldn't throw that all away now.

It was only when my phone began to vibrate loudly on my bedside table that I woke up. I slowly came back to myself. I crawled over to my bedside table and picked it up. The called ID read Kai and my stomach lurched. It seemed as if I was going to have to make this decision now whether I was ready to or not. I pressed the answer button and shakily held the phone to my ear.

"Hello." I said, my voice sounding very hoarse.

"Max," Kai said. "I'm outside."

"Okay," I said my voice still a lot croakier than usual. "I'll be down in a second."

"Hey are you alright?" Kai asked. "You sound funny?" I cleared my throat.

"Um yeah," I lied. "I'll be down in a second." I put the phone down before he could bombard me with any more questions. I grabbed my keys, pulled on some shoes and ran downstairs to meet him.

When I reached the front door my heart leapt to my throat – Kai was there. I could barely breath, my lungs felt like they had just decided to stop working and my entire body was screaming at me to run away and not make this decision because I was too scared but I had to. Either I had to not let Voltair scare me off and potentially throw away everything I've worked for for the last couple of years or end things with Kai and let Voltair have his way. Fuck, this was so messed up! I felt like I was going to collapse under the pressure.

"Hey," Kai said as I reached him. He leaned down to kiss me and I turned my head at the last second so that his lips collided with my cheek. "you alright?" I opened my mouth. I could just tell him what had happened, that his grandfather had basically threatened me with expulsion if I didn't break up with him, he would believe me and help me to work out what my next move should be. I could do that. I should do that. But I didn't. I took the coward's way out and didn't think before I spoke.

"I think we should take a break." I blurted out.

Kai blanched and stared at me with wide eyes, trying to take in what I had just said. I looked at the floor, not wanting to see the hurt in his face. He didn't say anything so I looked up and saw him glaring at me.

"What?" he asked.

"I think we should take a break." I said again.

"Why?" he asked almost immediately. It was almost as if he knew that I was saying this under duress. I still had a chance to tell him about Voltair. But, again, I didn't do that. I just couldn't make my brain connect to my mouth.

"I need to focus on my studies right now." I mumbled.

"That's bullshit Max." he said.

"I..." I didn't know what I was going to say. It was Kai; he just knew me like that. He knew when I was lying.

"What's going on with you?" he asked. He knew me too well to just believe that I was giving up like this. I could have told him the truth right then and I should have done. He knew something was wrong so I should have just told him. I should have but something was holding me back and I was too much of a coward to face the fact that I needed to make the decision on my own.

"I just need to focus on these exams." I said again looking down at the floor. He let out a scoffing, breathy laugh.

"You know what?" he said. "Whatever it is that's going on with you, I don't care." That made me stop and look up.

"What?"

"I don't care." he said. "I know there's something you're not telling me but I'm done trying to guess what's going on in your head. I can't take you blowing hot and cold like this all the time. I'm done. Whatever it is you can figure it out on your own. Even if you figure this out don't bother calling me; I'm not interested anymore."

I opened my mouth to say something but closed it again. I had no idea what to say. There was nothing I felt I could say. I looked down at my shoes so that I wouldn't have to see Kai as he walked away but I heard his footsteps retreating. I waited until I could no longer hear them and looked up to see that I was alone. I let out a long shuddering breath. All I needed to do was not break down, not until I got to the privacy of my bedroom at least.

I turned and went back inside. My chest was tightening and I could feel that same horrible feeling, like I was drowning, like I couldn't breath and my throat was closing, bubbling up inside me. The stronger it got the faster I was running up the stairs. I collided with someone as I reached my floor. I couldn't tell who it was and I didn't hang around to find out. I heard them call my name after me but even that didn't stop me. I kept on moving until, finally, I made it to my room. I threw myself down on my bed, curling myself into as tight a ball as possible and tried to hold in the sobs. I had made my choice and I would have to live with it.

* * *

I awoke the following morning to the soft chatter of Kenny and Dizzy. I was still curled around my pillow underneath my covers. I didn't want to move; my throat felt like sandpaper and my cheeks were cracked and dry from where I hadn't bothered to wipe my tears away. If I hadn't had class that day I wouldn't have gotten out of bed at all but I thought I would at least pretend I was asleep until Kenny had left, then I wouldn't have to talk to anyone until I absolutely had to. I wasn't up for talking as I looked like shit and people would ask question and that would only make everything come to the surface again.

Eventually I heard Kenny say goodbye to Dizzy, close his laptop and leave the room. I waited just in case he came back before I stretched myself out. Lying curled up like that all night had left me very stiff and I was going to be feeling that for the next few days I realised. I ran a hand over my face before pushing my duvet off and sitting up, rubbing my face and stretching again until I felt my shoulders pop.

"Morning Bright Eyes." a familiar voice said. My eyes widened, I had thought I was alone. I slowly turned to see a very pretty girl with glasses sitting on Kenny's bed, smiling at me. I blinked at her. She gave me a small wave. "Hi." I let out a yelp that was half surprise an half panic, jumping backwards, trying to put as much distance between her and myself as possible.

"Who are you?" I asked. "What are you doing here? How did you get in?" The girl just laughed.

"You're certainly talkative first thing in the morning." she said. "We've been talking for nearly a year now and you don't recognise my voice?"

"What?"

"I'm Dizzy," she said and held out he hand. "it's nice to finally meet you Max."

"Hi." I replied taking her head. I was still staring at her, the cogs in my brain working overtime. This made so much sense! Of course this was Dizzy – now that she said it I recognised the voice. This also raised more questions that it answered; Kenny had said that he didn't use Skype so how had he even been talking to her. How was she here, in front of me and how was this even possible? "Hang on," I said, snapping out of my confusion. "you and Kenny were on Skype the whole time?"

"You catch on quick, don't you?" she grinned.

"But..." I began, getting more and more confused by the second. "I thought... He said..." I couldn't make sense of my thoughts so I couldn't finish any of my sentences.

"Kenny is a genius," Dizzy stated. "so don't you think that if he could set up a program like Skype but without all of its flaws then he would?"

"I guess so." That made sense... well it made a lot more sense than his laptop being able to talk. Dizzy laughed.

"I mean it's not as if you thought his laptop could actually talk or anything." she said. I let out a nervous laugh.

"No, of course not," I replied. "because that would be crazy." I need professional help.

* * *

Dizzy stayed with us for a week and by the end of it I was cracking up. Not because of her but that fact that she was real and not a creepily sentient computer was definitely a contributing factor. I was trying to get through to the exam, trying (and failing) to avoid Kai and just trying to get through the day. It was so much harder than I thought it would have been. Hiding out in my room was becoming more and more difficult and having to deal with people was much more draining than it had even been.

By the end of the week I was beginning to seriously consider getting some help once the exams were over. All I had to do was make it through and then I could get my head sorted. I could stop worrying about Voltair and just get on with my life. It certainly wasn't perfect but it would have to do. I couldn't get back the one thing that I wanted so I would have to make damn sure that I got the other.

A soft knock at the door caught my attention. I turned to look over my shoulder at the door. The person on the other side knocked again. I sighed, got to my feet and went over to open it. On the other side were Emily, Mariah and Tala. The three of them standing there together made it look like an intervention, which I expect, in a weird way, it was.

"Hey." I said.

"Can we come in?" Mariah asked. I had expected them to try and get me to come out rather than wanting to come in. I shrugged and moved out of the doorway.

"Sure." I said. I waited until they were all sitting on my bed before closing the door and going back over to my desk. "So what's up guys?" I asked trying to sound nonchalant.

"Max what's going on with you?" Emily asked. I shrugged again.

"Nothing." I said.

"So hiding out in your room again is nothing?" Tala asked.

"I'm not hiding," I said. "I'm studying." God I was so far in denial I might as well be a fucking river in Egypt.

"Right you're focusing on your studies." Tala said rolling his eyes, clearly not believing me. "Like you told Kai."

"You've spoken to him?" I asked although that answer was obvious. Of course he had spoken to Kai and of course he had gotten him to talk about our break up. Tala just had a way of extracting information out of people. I wonder if he'd ever considered a career as a member of the SSR.

"About you? Briefly." he said. "He didn't tell me everything, just that he isn't buying your studying excuse."

"It's not an excuse." I said trying to keep myself smiling. Although I'm pretty sure they could see right through me.

"Then what's going on with you?" Emily asked again.

"Nothing guys," I said. "I'm fine, really I am, I just need to get through these exams and then I'll be back to myself again."

"What's so bad about the exams?" Mariah asked. "It's just like a normal class but just with a couple of extra guys grading you. There's nothing to worry about."

"Yeah I know that." I said. I probably should tell them about Voltair and what he had said to me. Clearly I was doing a rubbish job of handling it by myself (mostly because I wasn't handling it, I was hiding) but what would they be able to do about it? About as much as I could, if not less.

"Then why is this such a problem?" Emily asked.

"Yeah," Tala said. "what are you hiding?"

"I'm not hiding anything!" I said. I was beginning to get frustrated. There was nothing any of them could do – all I had to do was stay away from Kai until the exam was over and then I could stop looking over my shoulder for Voltair.

"Max, please," Mariah said. "just cut the crap and tell us what's really going on here."

"I can't!" I said angrily.

"Why not?" Tala asked.

"Because there's nothing you can do!" I tried not to shout. "There's hardly anything I can do! I've already thrown too much away over this. I didn't want to end things with Kai but I had to. I had to chose one thing or the other and I made my fucking choice. No matter which one I picked it would have been the wrong fucking choice." It was all spilling out of me now, I had started and I couldn't stop. There was nothing that was going to derail me.

"Max," Emily said trying to sound calm even though my outburst was probably freaking her out. "calm down and tell us what's going on."

"I can't calm down!" I said. "The exam is tomorrow and Voltair will end me if he sees me anywhere near Kai!"

"What?" Mariah asked.

"I knew you were hiding something." Tala cried.

"I..." Fuck!

"Max what the hell?" Mariah asked.

"Just tell us what's going on." Emily said. I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. It was about time I faced the music.

"Last week Voltair came to talk to me." I told them.

"Voltair?" Mariah asked. "As in Kai's grandfather, school chairman Voltair?"

"The very same." I replied. "He told me that if I didn't end things with Kai then he would have me expelled.

"What?" Tala asked.

"Can he do that?"" Emily asked. I shrugged, shaking my head.

"I have no idea." I replied. "Probably, I mean he is a school chairman after all."

"But you have to tell someone!" Emily exclaimed. "The school Dean, Hiro, anyone!"

"You have to at least tell Kai." Tala said.

"No!" I cried.

"If you won't then I will." he said. "He has a right to know." He got up and I grabbed his arm, looking up at him with wide eyes.

"No!" I said again. "Tala please you'll only make it worse!"

"You have to do something Max." he said. "You can't just continue running and hiding all the time."

"Yeah," Mariah said. "you need to tell Kai if no one else. He has a right to know if his grandfather has blackmailed you into breaking up with him or face being expelled."

"How do I even begin to explain myself though?" I asked. "I should have told him when it first happened but I fucked things up and I don't know how to fix it."

"Well then let us help." Mariah said. "We can talk to someone who can go over Voltair's head because he can't blackmail you like this."

"Yeah you've got to fight this." Emily said.

"How? Who is going to believe me?"

"Well you need to let us do something," she said. "because you're doing a lousy job of it by yourself."

"I know." I sighed. They were right I did need to do something but I had no idea what I could do. If I'd have told them about this to begin with then I could have done something but now I couldn't help feeling like I had left this much too late. The exam was tomorrow and I had no idea how I was going to get though it without cracking up.

 **Chapter title lyrics taken from 'Say Something, I'm Giving Up On You' by A Great Big World feat. Christina Aguilera**


	17. Too Early To Say Goodnight

**So this is a little bit of filler before your weekend and before we get to the last couple of chapters, hope you enjoy :D**

In the end whatever brilliant plan we were going to come up with to fix the mess I had landed myself in fell through. Between the four of us neither myself, Mariah, Emily or Tala could come up with anything that anyone was likely to believe (because, really, who was going to believe me?) and by the time we had thought of something that was even halfway convincing all the faculty members that I could have spoken to had gone home for the day. So, in a word, I was screwed. I had no way to get out of this.

And that is how I ended up sitting in the back row of the auditorium with all the other first years, trying to keep myself from freaking out. It wasn't working. I was trying to listen to the performances but I was too busy worrying about my own. When I had come into the auditorium I had locked eyes with Voltair sitting in the front row. He had given me a warning look before turning back to the stage. I have no idea if he knew that I had done what he told me to or not. Maybe he was going to let me stew until the end of the exam and then tell me if I had been expelled or not. Not knowing was the worst kind of torture.

"Hey," Mariah said taking hold of my hand and giving it a squeeze. "don't be nervous, you're going to do fine."

"I'm not worried about actually performing." I said.

"Well that's good."

"It's the potential expulsion at the end of it."

"Oh yeah," she said as if she was only just remembering. "that would put a dampen on things."

"Just a little." I replied. I turned my attention back to the stage, watching as Eddie finished his performance and left the stage. I wished I wasn't so distracted and could actually enjoy the performances (as from the bits I did managed to take in they were all really good) but, as it was, all I could think about was the possibility of having another conversation with Voltair after it was all over. I mean, everything should be fine – I'd hardly even seen Kai today at all so I was safe on that front. I groaned and put my head in my hands.

"Hey who's that?" Emily asked suddenly as the applause for the next performer had died down.

"The guy with Rei?" Mariah asked. "I have no idea." I was too nervous to even look up from my hands and see who they were talking about. It was probably going to be someone who sat at the back of class and kept themselves to themselves if they didn't know who he was. I just sat there trying to block everything out until it was my turn to go up on stage. I hated the fact that I was this nervous.

"Is he in our year?" Emily asked.

"I guess he must be," Mariah replied. "but I have never seen him before in my life. Can you even have two people on stage during the exam?"

"As long as the person who is taking it does most of the work you can." Emily stated. "Like if this mystery guy is the one being examined all Rei had to do is harmonies and maybe some music as well then it's well within the rules."

"Ah okay." Mariah said. "Either way Mystery Guy is kind of cute."

I was barely listening. I just wanted to block everything out until I was required to do something. Music started up but again I wasn't paying that much attention, my mind was thinking about too much other stuff to really care. That was until the Mystery Guy Mariah and Emily were talking about started to sing.

"We watched the season pull up its own stakes

And catch the last weekend of the last week

Before the gold and the glimmer have been replace

Another sun soaked season fades away

You have stolen my heart

You have stolen my heart..."

Slowly I lifted my head to look at the stage. Sure enough there was Rei sitting next to someone else. I could understand why Mariah and Emily didn't recognise him – he looked complete different when his hair was long and tied back rather than in his normal spiked up style. I listened as he continued singing and I could feel my eyes beginning to well up.

"It's Kai..." I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

"What?" Mariah exclaimed.

"How can you tell?" Emily asked.

"Because this was the first song he ever played me." I replied. My heart ached as I remembered the first time Kai and I ever slept together. Afterwards we had been lying in bed together and I had seen his acoustic guitar in the corner. After a bit of persuasion on my part he had eventually relented and played for me. He had played this song and, since then, this had always been my favourite song. Tears were slowly making their way down my cheeks as he sang and it felt like he was singing just for me. "He remembered."

"I watch you spin around in your highest heels

You are the best one of the best ones

We all look like we feel

You have stolen my...

You have stolen my...

You have stolen my heart"

The song came to a close and Kai and Rei left the stage. All I could do was sit there and stare, my mind whirring. Kai had chosen that song to perform, knowing that I would be in the audience listening. He must have done that for a reason. I couldn't be the only one of us who remember what that song mean to the both of us. I needed to go and talk to him. If nothing else I needed to find out what he meant by it and I wanted to tell him how I felt. I shouldn't have let Voltair win and after hearing that I finally had the courage to actually do something as, if it mean the same thing to him as it did to me, then he was still in love with me. Just like I was still in love with him.

"Max are you alright?" Emily asked looking at me with concern.

"Yeah," I said wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. "I have to go and find Kai." Without another word I got up and ran out of the auditorium. I had to find Kai and talk to him, to tell him how I felt before I lost my nerve and lost my chance again.

 **Chapter title lyrics are taken from 'Stolen' by Dashboard Confessional**


	18. I Can Be A Little Bit Stronger

**Finally Max stepping up and not letting anyone push him around! Sappy love confessions abound, hope you're all having a good weekend and you enjoy :D**

It was one of those times when I was glad that backstage wasn't the maze that it could have been and I found the dressing room that Kai would be in. It was the only one with the door closed. I took a deep breath trying to steady my nerves. I could feel myself shaking a little as I raised my hand to knock on the door. This was so silly – it wasn't as if Kai and I hadn't had conversations like this before. I took another deep breath (it was too late and I didn't want to turn back now) closed my eyes and knocked on the door.

"I love you: I always have and I always will." I said, without opening my eyes, as soon as I heard the door open. A soft chuckle met my ears but it didn't sound like Kai's voice. I opened my eyes and looked up to see Rei standing in the doorway grinning at me. All the blood rushed to my face to the point where it felt like it was glowing.

"Kai's up on the roof." he said.

"Um thank you." I said. God that was so embarrassing! Next time see who has opened the door before you blurt shit like that out – it makes the next part of the conversation much, much less awkward. I still thought I could save it though. "Hey Rei how come...?"

"Kai and I performed together?" he asked finishing my sentence for me. I nodded. "Well after I ran into you on the stairs the other week and you looked like the world had just ended I figured that he was something to do with it. I went and found him and we had a chat." But chat I was pretty sure he meant beating the living shit out of each other and the fading bruise on his jaw confirmed this. "Then some other stuff happened, that I'll let him explain, and he asked if I'd perform with him."

"Oh okay." That seemed both a lot less and a lot more complicated than I had thought it was going to be.

"I don't know how long Kai is planning on staying up there." Rei said when I made no other response. "so if you want to go talk to him before you have to perform I'd go find him now."

"Thanks Rei." I said and smiled. It was a little awkward having Rei tell me to go and get Kai back, considering what had gone on between us at the beginning of the year, but it gave me that extra little push that I needed. Rei grinned and ruffled my hair.

"Don't mention it." he said. "Now get going." I nodded, turning back the way I had come and ran down the corridor. If Kai was on the roof he had to have used the nearest fire exit so I was hoping that he wouldn't be too hard to find. I needed to do this before I had to perform or I would never do it.

I found a fire exit and ran up the stairs till I reached the door that led to the roof. It had been propped open with half a brick so I knew I had the right place. I carefully put the door back on the brick (getting stuck up here now would not be good) and turned to see Kai leaning against the rail and looking out over the grounds. I took a deep breath, I was still really nervous – I mean you would be, wouldn't you? I took a few more steps towards him.

"Hey." I said. He turned to me, his face was unreadable. Was he happy to see me? Was he annoyed? Was he going to push me off the roof?

"Hey," he replied. "what are you doing up here?"

"I came to see you." I said. "I came up here to tell you that I know things have been insane recently, and I'm sorry for that putting you through all of it, but I just needed to tell you that I love you. I always have and I always will."

He stared at me for a moment and I still couldn't tell what was going on in his head. He took a step towards me and I could feel myself shaking slightly (there was still a chance he could just punch my lights out). Without a word he took hold of my face and pulled me into a hot, hard kiss. I reacted almost instantly, grabbing onto his shirt and kissing him back with equal force. One of his hands left my face so that his arm could wrap around my waist and pull me right up against his body, hugging me tightly.

Soon tongues came into the mix and I was practically moaning into his mouth as he took complete control. I clung to his shirt so that my knees wouldn't give out. My head was getting fuzzy from the lack of oxygen and the lust coursing through my veins. Finally we broke apart for air, both of us panting heavily.

"I love you too." he said once he had caught his breath. "I shouldn't have walked away..."

"No I should have told you what was going on!" I cut him off. "If I'd have just told you then things wouldn't have gotten so messed up. I shouldn't have let anything drive us apart but..." He cut me off be kissing me again.

"It's okay." he said when he pulled away.

"No it's not." I said. "I should have handled this better. I know I should of and I'm trying to fix that now."

"What do you mean?"

"There's something I need to tell you." I said

"Is this about Voltair?" he asked.

"How did you know?"

"Tala told me." he said. Of course he did. That shouldn't have surprised me really. "I wish you'd told me before."

"I know." I said hanging my head. "I'm sorry." He placed a finger under my chin and lifted my head back up so I had to look at him.

"You're telling me now." he said. Tears pricked my eyes. I couldn't believe how understanding he was about the whole thing. I was filled with shame for not telling him in the first place.

"I love you," I said wrapping my arms around his neck and burying my face into his shoulder as I began to cry softly. "so much." He hugged me tightly.

"I love you too." he said softly.

"So will you give me another chance?" I asked pulling back to look at him. He smiled and brushed my hair out of my eyes.

"You promise to tell me things like this from now on?"

"Yes." I said nodding. "Everything."

"Good." he replied. He tightened his hold on me and I stood up on my toes to kiss him. I held him like I would never let go and kissed him like we were the only two people in the world, and in that moment we were.

* * *

Eventually Kai and I left the roof. Neither of us particularly wanted to but I still had to take my exam. While we were on the roof we talked some more. I told him everything that Voltair had said to me and what had happened in the last week. Once I had finished he made me promise, again, to tell him things like this so I didn't have to go through them again on my own and I didn't leave him in the dark. I just felt so happy knowing that he was willing to give me another chance and that I could actually be better if something like this came up again.

When we returned to the dressing rooms, my hand in his, and we were instantly bombarded by Tala, Mariah and Emily (who had obviously gone looking for me when I didn't come back). I was ready for a deluge of questions from all three of them but Kai gave my hand a squeeze and I felt a little braver.

"Hey guys." I gave them a small wave. All of them immediately turned to look at Kai's and my entwining fingers.

"So you want to give us an explanation as to why you just ran off like that?" Emily asked grinning at me. She knew exactly why I had left the auditorium she just wanted me to say it out loud.

"Not particularly." I replied.

"So is everything okay between you two?" Mariah asked. I looked up at Kai and smiled at him. He smiled back at me.

"Yeah." he said.

"And everything is sorted with Max and Voltair and all that business?" Tala asked. I stiffened. It really wasn't sorted. I had been so deliriously happy about having another chance with Kai I had forgotten about all of the shit with Voltair. Kai came to my rescue and raised an eyebrow at Tala.

"Come on give us a break," he said. "what is this? Twenty questions?" I was grateful to him for that. I didn't know how to answer that question because I still didn't know what was going to happen.

"Oh wasn't it just amazing though," Mariah said practically glowing. "when Max realised Kai was singing to him and ran after him to confess his love."

"Wasn't it just the cutest thing?" Emily agreed. "It was like something out of an epic romance." Tala just rolled his eyes, shook his head and fixed me with a look that said 'girls; am I right?'

"Yeah well as adorable as that performance was," he said. "Max still has to perform and Voltair does not look happy."

"What?" I asked, more breath than word. I shouldn't have been surprised that Voltair was pissed. If he had looked back at me after Kai had finished performing and seen me disappear or had seen the empty space where I had been I'm sure he would have put two and two together and worked out that I had gone to see Kai then of course he was going to be pissed.

I removed my hand from Kai's and crept behind the stage where I could see out into the audience but not be seen myself. Sure enough Voltair was sitting in the front row, his face like thunder. If I had thought he looked angry before he looked positively livid now. I suddenly felt as if I had been shoved into ice cold water.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned t see Kai standing behind me with Kenny wearing a head-set just behind his shoulder. Seeing Kenny holding a clipboard I knew exactly what he was going to say before he said it.

"Max you're up on stage after the next two performances." he told me. I looked back at Voltair sitting out in the auditorium and my chest tightened.

"Oh fuck..."

 **Chapter title lyrics are from 'Snow Fairy' by Funkist**


	19. Yet Through It All This Much Remains

**Big climaxes afoot and I'm super happy because I love this chapter and I'm on holiday :D hope you all enjoy**

Standing waiting in the wings to actually start the exam was nerve wrecking, especially seeing as the girl who was on before me (some girl called Julia) threw up all over the stage so I had to wait for them to clean up. From what both Kenny and Mariah had been talking about in regard to my performance there was probably going to be a lot of clean up after mine too. When they both came up to me with manic grins saying 'we have plans' I knew it wasn't going to be good but, what the hell, I might as well just go with it.

I sighed. I turned to go and find Kenny, tell him that he 'plans' might not be the best of ideas when I found myself walking into something huge and solid. I looked up and found myself face to face with Voltair. Ah shit! This was the worst fucking time for him to show up when I couldn't escape. He glared down at me, I should be terrified but, for whatever reason, I wasn't. I stood my ground.

"Well Mr Tate it seems as if you have made your decision." he said. I stared up at him as defiantly as I felt I was able.

"It seems I have." I replied.

"This is a dangerous game you have decided to play Mr Tate." he said. Maybe it was, especially with his threat of expulsion hanging over my, but I was going to hold my ground this time. I had backed down before and I wasn't going to do it again.

"Maybe." I replied. Monotonous responses were going to be my friend right now. "I did what you said though," I said after a moment. "but circumstances changed." Voltair chuckled darkly.

"Clearly. A little late in the game for you to be growing a spine, don't you think?" he asked. I just glared at him. "Well as your circumstances have changed then I shall change mine to accommodate."

"Meaning?" I didn't trust him. I didn't trust that he was going to be in anyway fair and I was right not to. He had not proven himself to be at all trustworthy and I knew that he hated me to the end of the earth.

"I will not stop you pursuing your relationship with Kai and I will not prevent you from advancing into your second year." he said.

"If..." I pressed. I knew there was no chance that I was going to get away with just that. There had to be more of a condition that that. Voltair smiled at me. It was a conniving smile that did nothing to convince me of his intentions as being anything other than terrible and fucking with me, Kai and anyone else he wanted to.

"If you pass the exam." he said.

"Is that all?" I asked. Again I was sure that I wasn't gong to get off that easily.

"Yes." he replied.

"So I just need to get three passing grades from the teachers you'll let me get on with my life?" I asked. Voltair smiled again and I instantly felt terror.

"Nothing quite so simple as that Mr Tate." he said silkily. "If you managed to get a perfect passing grade from every single one of your teachers then I will let you 'get on with your life' as you put it. If you fail even one single one of those then I will see to it that you are expelled from thi school and that you never see Kai again."

I stood there staring at him. This was his ultimatum and I was determined to face him. I let him win once before and there was no fucking way that I was going to let him do it again. My expression and my resolve hardened and I looked, defiantly, up at him.

"Fine." I said.

* * *

Once Julia's sick had been cleaned up I had to go back into the wings. After I had accepted his challenge Voltair had left, returning to the auditorium. I was still nervous but, after that, I was more determined than ever that I was going to pull this off – I had to. If I didn't get full marks from every single one of the teachers on the examination panel then, not only would Voltair try and have me expelled but I would probably lose Kai as well.

I had to do everything in my power to stop that from happening. I had only just gotten him back! This was a ridiculous amount of pressure but I knew that I had to be strong. If I caved now then I wasn't even going to be able to go out on stage, never mind get through the performance. I took a deep breath – I could get through, I had to – as my name was called and I stepped onto the stage.

The lights were blinding (which was quite good as it meant I didn't have to see Voltair glaring at me) and I had never noticed before just how alone you felt standing on that stage. It was made ten times worse knowing that the auditorium was full and that everyone was staring at me. (It also didn't help knowing that at least one person in the audience desperately wanted me to fail). The music began and I already felt more confident. I took a deep breath and raised the microphone to my lips.

"Each day I love I want to be

A day to give the best of me

I'm only one but not alone

My finest day is yet unknown..."

I had had a text from Tyson this morning wishing me good luck and to tell me not to worry about the performance and just enjoy it. Before I wouldn't have even thought of the possibility of enjoying myself but now I was just ignoring everything. I could block out the audience. I could block out Voltair. I could block out everything that had happened before I went on stage and whatever was going to happen afterwards and just have fun. Finally I could enjoy myself to the fullest. I no longer had a care in the world – all there was was me and the stage; nothing else.

"You're a winner for a lifetime

If you seize that one moment in time

Make it shine..."

At that moment I heard two bangs from either side of me and a shower of glitter cascaded over the stage from either side and covered me. I cast a quick glance to either side of the stage and saw Mariah and Kenny, each with a confetti cannon, grinning at me. It was like a scene from an inspirational eighties film. I was covered in glitter (that was probably never going to come out) and I was singing my heart out. Whatever the outcome of this I was going to consider this performance a big 'fuck you' to Voltair and everyone else who didn't think I could do it.

"Give me one moment in time

When I'm more than I thought I could be

When all of my dream are a heartbeat away

And the answers are all up to me

Give me one moment in time

When I'm racing with destiny

Then in that one moment of time

I will be...

I will be...

I will be free!"

The song came to a close and I stood in the centre of the stage, microphone in the air and covered in glitter, panting heavily. Once the stage lights had gone down and the auditorium lights came back up I took up a neutral stance and turned my attention to where Hiro was sitting with Professor Topper, Dr Best and DJ Jazz Man. I wasn't nervous, not with all the adrenaline pumping through my veins which prevented me from feeling anything other than complete elation from the performance.

"Well Mr Tate," Dr Best said looking up from his notes and smiling at me. "that was certainly a performance."

"Thank you." I panted.

"While it is true you showed no choreographic skill at all your enthusiasm and determination to do the absolute best that you could shone through and you delivered an absolutely brilliant performance." A grin began to spread across my face.

"Thank you sir."

"Max! Dude!" Jazz Man cried slapping his hands down on the table in front of him and jumping up from is seat. "Oh man! The key changes and the glitter and just the whole thing! You put your entire heart and soul into that and it was amazing."

"Thank you." I said. Just hearing their praise was the most fantastic thing in the world but also knowing that I had one less to get through before I had done it.

"You have an interesting technique Mr Tate." Professor Topper stated. I hope he meant that in a good way. "You seemed to be performing as if this was going to be your last performance and it worked. You put everything into it; your pitch was almost perfect, a little bit more work and it will be, the theatrics really added to it and you made the song your own. Well done."

"Thank you sir." I said. My heart stopped as I turned to look at Hiro. Just like every other time I had performed for him I couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"Well Tate you certainly do know how to surprise me." he said. "You have strengths and you have weakness and I wouldn't have said that a song like this was the best pick to accentuate your strengths." Fuck! I was so close... "That being said you gave it everything you had; sure it wasn't choreographically anything but you're a singer not a dancer, your enthusiasm rivals that of anyone I've ever met and you have the potential to be a really great performer if you continue to work as hard as you do. Fantastic performance – I'll see you next year kid."

"Thank you." I beamed.

"We do now need to take a short break to clean up all the fucking glitter." Hiro said with a eyebrow raised in irritation.

"Sorry." I laughed nervously. I brushed some of the glitter out of my hair and left the stage. As soon as I reached the wings I was bombarded by Mariah, throwing her arms around my neck and hugging me tightly.

"Max you were amazing!" she cried.

"I passed!" I said. It was still sinking in that I had actually pulled it off and was over this time and I could find Kai and we could be happy and just everything would be better but I didn't see him anywhere. "Where's Kai?" I asked. Mariah grinned at me.

"He's currently in one of the dressing rooms." she said. I frowned at her in confusion, when she said it like that it sounded creepy (like she had tied him to a chair naked, especially for me) especially with the grin spreading across her face. I made my way to the dressing rooms and heard Kai's voice coming out of one of them.

"...And if I ever, ever hear about you threatening him in any way I'm sure the rest of the school board would be really interested in hearing about this." Kai said. I heard Voltair splutter for a moment then fall silent.

"Fine." he snarled. I moved out of the way of the door just in time as it burst open and Voltair stormed out. I stood there staring after him until I felt arms wrap around me from behind. I leaned back against Kai's chest and smiled.

"Hey." I said.

"Hey yourself." he said. I placed a hand on top of one of his.

"Everything is going to be okay now right?" I asked.

"As okay as life ever is." he replied.

"Good." I said before turning to face him, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him. Finally I felt like I could relax with him here with me.

 **Chapter title lyrics and inside lyrics are taken from 'One Moment In Time' by Whitney Houston**


	20. With Just Words And Just Music

**Well here it is guys, a little epilogue-ish chapter for you. Thank you so much for all your reads and reviews - I honestly did not think that anyone was going to read this when I started writing it but knowing that people have been reading and enjoying it has been such an amazing feeling so I just want to say thank you so much again. I also hope you have enjoyed the music. Anyway enough from me, I hope you enjoy the last chapter :D**

"I had a phone call from Tyson earlier." I said as soon as Kai picked up the phone.

It had been seven years since I had stuck it to Voltair at my first year BBA exams. In that time both Kai and I had graduated and had moved in together after that. Neither of us had any money, and London is expensive, so the first place was literally a room in a house share. Both of us got jobs; Kai teaching kids how to play guitar at a local school three days a week and I got some bar work and, if I was lucky, I got to perform on Open Mic Night. It was hard work but I had Kai so everything was alright.

"Oh yeah?" Kai didn't sound impressed in the slightest. "What did he want?"

"He says you made Zeo cry." I teased. Even through the phone I could practically see the muscles in his jaw tighten. I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing.

"He was being an annoying little shit." he said finally. I couldn't help myself from laughing at that.

"Of course he was, he's six." I replied. Tyson and Hilary had ended up getting married not long after they graduated from university when Hilary got pregnant (the words 'shotgun wedding' were rather appropriate). Emily and Michael got engaged, as did Kenny and Dizzy and Mariah even managed to tie Rei down once they had realised just how perfect for each other they were (after what she had told me was a very hot but very awkward evening with the two of them and Enrique at an alumni weekend). All of us were pretty much broke but we got by. Kai sighed.

"I'm not good with kids." he said.

"It's okay," I said. "you don't have to be."

"I do," he replied. "it's kind of my job."

"True." I said. "If it helps at all Miguel told me they're planning on making me performing a permanent thing as I'm the only one who ever does."

"Really? That's amazing!"

"And he's going to pay me for it too." I said.

"That's brilliant." he said. "When do you start?"

"Tonight."

"What time will you be back?" he asked. "We can do something to celebrate when you get home."

"I'm on till close so I'll probably be back around half-two, three o'clock."

"Give me a text when you're on your way home and I'll make sure I'm up for when you get back." he said. A smile spread across my face. He was always doing little things like this – he had a lot of work to do and an early shift tomorrow but he was still willing to wait up for me. It was his way of showing me just how much he cared.

"Don't you have work tomorrow though?"

"I can be tired for one day." he said. I smiled. He really was amazing, especially when he did things like that.

"Hey Maxie," someone said from behind me. I turned to see Miguel sticking his head around the door. "you're on in three."

"Okay thanks." I said to him. "I've got to go get to work." I told Kai. "I'll see you later."

"Good luck tonight." he said. "I love you.

"I love you too." I hung up the phone and made me way over to Miguel. He handed me a microphone.

"Cutting it fine?" he grinned. "How is the boyfriend?"

"He's great." I said smiling to myself. "Just telling him the good news."

"And..."

"And he said he'd wait up for me when I got home tonight." I said.

"Well," Miguel grinned. "someone's getting laid tonight." I pulled a face at him and he laughed, clapping me on the shoulder. "Go out there and knock them dead." I nodded, running out onto the tiny stage as the music started up.

"It's a really old city

Stuck between the dead and the living

So I thought to myself

Sitting on a graveyard shelf

As the echo of heartbeats

From the ground bellow my feet

Filled a cemetery in the centre of Queens"

This is something I could get used to; performing instead of serving drinks, and getting my arse grabbed by random punters, then going home to Kai. If the pay is good enough then we might even be able to afford more than a one bedroom flat some day. I didn't mind if we didn't though, I was happy.

"You said remember that life is

Not meant to be wasted

We can always be chasing the sun

So fill up your lungs and just run

Always be chasing the sun!"

I got home at around quarter to three in the morning. Kai was still awake, waiting for me. We talked for a bit about the new job, he made me a sandwich and I asked him how his lesson planning had been going. Talking led to kissing – making out on the sofa like we were teenagers again – and that eventually led to our bedroom. I had to bite my lip to keep from waking the neighbours as we fucked since the walls were made of paper. We lay there afterwards panting heavily, Kai turned to me and kissed me. I was exhausted from my shift, he had to get up for work in three hours and neither of us had a care in the world.

 _THE END_

 **Chapter title lyrics and inside lyrics are taken from 'Chasing The Sun' by Sara Bareilles**


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